International Piano NO.44 JUL/AUG 2017 £5.50 www.international-piano.com
PEAK PERFORMANCE INSIDE Beethoven’s mighty SHEET MUSIC Hammerklavier CHRISTOPHER NORTON’S PACIFIC PRELUDES on disc
JULY/AUGUST 2017 JULY/AUGUST FROM BOOSEY & HAWKES SEE PAGE 43 SCORING POINTS Editing Hummel’s COMPOSING Concerto No 2 AT THE KEYS Do we judge the works of pianist-composers PLUS NEW TECHNOLOGY too harshly? FOR TUNING MAKE SCALE PRACTICE FUN MARC-ANDRÉ
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IPJA17.indd 2 06/06/2017 15:29:39 CONTENTS © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE 16 34 © ABU DHABI FESTIVAL © PRINTEMPS DES ARTS DE MONTE- 52 57
Contents 5 EDITORIAL willing to explore International Music SPECIAL FEATURES Finding solace in music unusual repertoire? Competition 16 SHARED EXPERIENCE 6 LETTERS 34 RED OCTOBER 52 LIVE REVIEWS Canadian virtuoso Your thoughts and London Piano Festival Concert coverage from Marc-André Hamelin comments marks the centenary of London, Bergamo and shares his passion for rare Russia’s 1917 revolutions Monaco’s Printemps des repertoire and explains 8 NEWS & EVENTS Arts festival why it’s important to Steinway & Sons opens 36 IN TUNE WITH understand the mechanics Paris showroom | The THE TIMES 57 CULTURAL PEARL of music Leeds announces annual New technology that’s Abu Dhabi’s flourishing piano festival | New changing the art of piano festival puts a spotlight on 25 OWN BRAND Chopin competition on tuning culture in the Arabian IP celebrates the period instruments | Gulf achievements of pianist- and more… 39 KEY NOTES composers How to practise scales – 65-74 NEW RELEASES 10 ONE TO WATCH and make it enjoyable CDs, DVDs, books and 30 SCORING POINTS Russian émigré Yulia sheet music Andrew Brownell Chaplina 43 SHEET MUSIC introduces his new The Christopher Norton 76 TAKE FIVE edition of Hummel’s 13 COMMENT Pacific Preludes Collection Jazz legend Duke Concerto in A minor Don’t underestimate pianists from Boosey & Hawkes Ellington in their youthful prime 61 PEAK PEFORMANCE 48 COMPETITION FOCUS 78 MUSIC OF MY LIFE Beethoven’s mighty 14 ILL-TEMPERED CLAVIER Down to the wire at this Hungarian pianist and Hammerklavier Sonata Why aren’t audiences year’s Montreal conductor Tamás Vásáry on disc
July/August 2017 International Piano 3
IPJA17_003_Contents 0706OM.indd 3 07/06/2017 15:03 18501 Steinway Int. Piano (Grimaud) July_Layout 1 07/06/2017 16:30 Page 1
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IPJA17.indd 4 07/06/2017 16:46:06 EDITOR’ S NOTE Welcome henever a society suffers an appalling Managing Editors Ashutosh Khandekar, trauma, such as the recent terror attacks on Owen Mortimer the UK, concerts can become a focal point Editor Owen Mortimer forW bringing people together. They are opportunities for Head of Design & Production / communities to share complex feelings – grief, anger, Designer Beck Ward Murphy Production Controller Gordon Wallis solidarity and empathy – through music. Advertising Sales Edward Croome It was a cruel irony, therefore, that the bomb detonated in [email protected] Manchester on 22 May should have been directed at music Marketing Manager Alfred Jahn Director of Finance and Operations Tony Soave lovers leaving a concert. The following morning, pianist Publisher Derek B Smith Igor Levit posted a brief message on his Facebook page that Printed by HALSTAN UK, 2-10 Plantation Road, summed up the sense of helplessness and incredulity many Amersham, Buckinghamshire HP6 6HJ of us were feeling: ‘A terrifying horror,’ he began. ‘How do Distributed by Comag Specialist Division you work? How to make music? Just “shut off”? Every Tel: +44 (0)1895 433800 thought goes to the victims and their families.’ Advertising Then, a few hours later, another message from Levit: ‘Music doesn’t help sh*t’. He Tel: +44 (0)20 7333 1733 Fax: +44 (0)20 7333 1736 was reacting to a post from a fan who said artists should ‘respond with something other Production than despair and hate and helplessness’, but his bluntness and negativity prompted an Tel: +44 (0)20 7333 1751 immediate outcry. ‘At first I was very upset with you, but then I listened to your music’, Fax: +44 (0)20 7333 1768 said one comment: ‘I cried, I smiled, I felt happy then very sad again. So what the hell is Editorial wrong with you?’ Tel: +44 (0)7824 884 882 A top flight performer whose recordings of works such as Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations [email protected] www.rhinegold.co.uk | www.international-piano.com have been widely praised, Levit is clearly capable of deep emotion. His negativity, however, Twitter: @IP_mag stemmed from a rejection of the bigger claim often made about music, namely that it is Subscriptions a force for moral good – an idea that goes back to Plato’s Republic. Recent history is more Tel: +44 (0)1795 414 650 equivocal on this point, demonstrating that even inherently ‘good’ music can be co-opted [email protected] 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, for evil ends. Sittingbourne, ME9 8GU, UK Beethoven is the supreme example of a composer whose music is frequently associated No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, with goodness, yet his assertion that ‘strength is the morality of the man who stands out mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of Rhinegold Publishing Ltd. The views expressed here from the rest’ was also beloved of the Third Reich. This underscores the fact that the arts are those of the authors and not of the publisher, editor, Rhinegold Publishing Ltd or its employees. We welcome letters but reserve do not exist in an abstract realm away from daily realities, but are embedded within our the right to edit for reasons of grammar, length and legality. No responsibility is accepted for returning photographs or manuscripts. wider value system. Whether we choose to emphasise the positive or negative aspects of We cannot acknowledge or return unsolicited material. International Piano, 977204207700507, is published bi-monthly by cultural assets depends on the values we hold, particularly when it comes to the wordless Rhinegold Publishing, 20 Rugby Street, London, WC1N 3QZ, UK. The US annual subscription price is US$83.00. Airfreight and mailing medium of music. in the USA by agent named Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid Discovering our better selves through music is therefore not only a case of playing or at Jamaica NY 11431. listening, but for these activities to open a window on to a much bigger world of ideas, US Postmaster: Send address changes to International Piano, Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, where music takes its rightful place alongside philosophy, politics and science. Music may NY 11434, USA Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. then help enormously in making a positive contribution to society, counteracting the Editorial and image research services for International Piano are despair (so vividly expressed by Levit) that follows horrific events. provided by C Sharp LLP
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International Piano is proud to be a media partner of the International IP is available as an interactive International Piano NO.44 JUL/AUG 2017 £5.50 www.international-piano.com Piano Series at Southbank Centre digital magazine from PEAK PERFORMANCE INSIDE Beethoven’s mighty SHEET MUSIC Hammerklavier CHRISTOPHER NORTON’S PACIFIC PRELUDES on disc pocketmags.com, iTunes and 2017 JULY/AUGUST FROM BOOSEY & HAWKES SEE PAGE 43 SCORING POINTS Editing Hummel’s COMPOSING Concerto No 2 AT THE KEYS INTERNATIONAL Do we judge the works GooglePlay – read on your PLUS of pianist-composers NEW TECHNOLOGY too harshly? FOR TUNING
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IPJA17_005_Editorial_0806OM.indd 5 08/06/2017 12:59 LETTERS LETTERS Write to International Piano, 20 Rugby Street, London, WC1N 3QZ, email [email protected] or tweet @IP_mag. Star letters will receive S P O N S O R E D BY a free CD from Hyperion’s best-selling Romantic Piano Concerto series HYPERION RECORDS SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL pianist who plays Rachmaninov’s Piano FOR THE RECORD Thank you for your recent cover article Concerto No 3 but has chosen not to I find it puzzling that Bryce Morrison, about Yuja Wang. I especially enjoyed the perform No 2. Does this make her less of a surveying recordings of Liszt’s Bénédiction additional commentary about Martha pianist than someone who performs both de Dieu dans la solitude (IP May/June, Argerich, since Ms Wang and Argerich concertos? My friend also happens to have page 57) chooses Alfred Brendel and happen to be two of my favourites. However, the Tchaikovsky Second Concerto in her Garrick Ohlsson for special praise, but I was unsettled by the following assertion: repertoire but has only had two or three only in their first recordings of the work ‘There are several ways in which Yuja opportunities to perform it. ‘No one wants (Brendel’s 1955 disc with ‘less than Wang clearly surpasses Argerich. The most it,’ she often laments, so clearly factors alluring sound’ and Ohlsson’s long out-of- important of these lies in her curiosity about such as agents, conductors and orchestras, print vinyl LP). In fact, both pianists re- the full extent of the repertoire’. This brought and even public taste affect an artist’s recorded the Bénédiction in versions that I to mind the age-old issue of quantity vs performing repertoire. regard to be sonically and interpretatively quality: is the pianist who performs more As we all know, Martha Argerich has superior: Brendel on Decca 4782825, repertoire inherently superior? spent recent decades exploring the chamber Ohlsson on Bridge 9409. One comparison that comes readily to music repertoire. Does this not count? The issue number for Louis Kentner’s mind is Claudio Arrau, who performed In closing, I noted from the article that second recording should also have been practically the entire repertoire, while Ms Wang has just turned 30. As we wish given as Vox CDX2-5503 rather than Pearl his contemporary, Arturo Benedetti her a Happy Birthday, I am reminded that – the latter, like the APR reissue, contains Michelangeli, performed significantly by the age of 30 Ms Argerich was both Kentner’s first (1938) version. fewer compositions (fewer even than a wife and a mother, while Ms Wang is Donald Manildi Ms Argerich, I might add). Does this neither. Might this also have an impact on Curator, International Piano Archives at somehow indicate Arrau’s superiority? the size of one’s repertoire? Maryland, US I personally happen to know a very fine LaWayne Leno, via email www.lib.umd.edu/ipam
Birmingham International Piano Festival 27 Oct – 4 Nov 2017
We are thrilled to present the 2017 Birmingham International Piano Festival – where we bring some of the world’s finest pianists and keyboard players to Birmingham. Performances will take place in the University of Birmingham’s world class concert halls in the Bramall Music Building and The Barber Institute of Fine Arts between Friday 27 October and Saturday 4 November 2017.
27 October 1.10pm Kenneth Hamilton piano 27 October 7.30pm Syd Lawrence Orchestra with Steven Devine 28 October 7.30pm European Union Chamber Orchestra harpsichord 1 November 7.30pm Benjamin Grosvenor piano 3 November 1.10pm Ksenija Sidorova accordion 4 November 2pm Songs About Us family concert
Admission: Free - £22. See website for details. Tickets + Info birminghampianofestival.com
IPJA17_006_R_Letters 0606KC.indd 6 07/06/2017 11:08
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International Piano June 2017.indd 1 7/06/17 10:31 NEWS & NOTES news notes STEINWAY OPENS PARIS SHOWROOM TEINWAY & SONS HAS OPENED A well as serving as a retail space, the pianos will be available from the Paris Snew showroom in the heart of Paris. 700sqm boutique houses a 50-seat concert showroom including the self-playing Located at 230, Boulevard Saint-Germain room and two rehearsal studios for artists Spirio grand piano, the company’s first on the Rive Gauche, the elegant two-level and students. major product release for 70 years, which retail and performance space is the first Clement Caseau, MD of Steinway & features a catalogue of high resolution of its kind to open in Europe, outside Sons France, said: ‘This is only the second performances by more than 1,700 Germany, since London’s Steinway Hall European Steinway & Sons space to open Steinway artists. in 1875. in 142 years outside our German home Steinway & Sons Paris can house up Based in the French capital’s historic market, so there was an inherent desire to 45 pianos and its team of concert level 7th arrondissement, the new showroom to create something truly special that technicians are available to support Steinway is designed to reflect and consolidate will become an exciting new part of the & Sons clients throughout France. Steinway’s reputation as a leading company’s history and of Paris.’ ambassador for the musical arts. As The whole range of Steinway & Sons eu.steinway.com/fr
Parisian chic: Steinway & Sons’ new boutique in the French capital xxxx GRÉGOIRE ELOY
8 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_008-009_R_News 0706OM.indd 8 07/06/2017 12:24 NEWS & NOTES
THE LEEDS ANNOUNCES ANNUAL PIANO FESTIVAL EEDS INTERNATIONAL PIANO Lars Vogt, Alessio Bax and Sunwook Kim the actual competition itself, we’re LCompetition has launched a new – will give recitals in both cities. passionate about growing the reach and annual piano festival and a major As a first stage in a new partnership impact of “The Leeds” by developing a partnership with the Lang Lang with the Lang Lang International Music much-enriched programme of events and International Music Foundation. Foundation, three Lang Lang Young activities around it.’ Both initiatives, led by the competition’s Scholars – talented pianists aged under Next year’s competition will take place artistic directors Paul Lewis and Adam 16 from across the world, all selected from 6 to 15 September 2018 in Leeds, Gatehouse, will expand the scope of the and mentored by Lang Lang – will give a UK, with first rounds in Berlin, Singapore event and provide new opportunities recital in Leeds during the Festival. They and New York in April 2018. Pianists for previous winners, young artists and will also be involved in education and who will be aged between 20 and 29 at audiences. engagement work in Leeds and Yorkshire, the time of the competition can submit The inaugural Leeds Piano Festival as well as in London in collaboration with applications until midnight on will take place from 14 to 22 May 2018 Wigmore Hall’s Learning programme. 31 October. in Leeds and London. Past winners and In a joint statement, Lewis and alumni of the competition – including Gatehouse said: ‘As well as reinvigorating www.leedspiano.com
NEW CHOPIN COMPETITION ON PERIOD INSTRUMENTS HE FRYDERYK CHOPIN recommendations and a video recording recorded on historical instruments is TInstitute has announced the world’s for assessment by a selection committee. also available from the Fryderyk Chopin first ever Chopin Competition on Roughly 40 pianists will be invited to Institute (NIFCCD 000-020). historical instruments. The inaugural take part in the Competition, featuring event will take place in Warsaw from two solo recital rounds and a concerto en.chopin.nifc.pl/institute/iccpi/info 2 to 14 September 2018 to mark the final with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth centenary of the restoration of Poland’s Century from Amsterdam. The entire Chopin in 1849 independence. competition will be streamed online. Competitors will be given the chance to Besides cash prizes, winners will be play a range of historical pianos from the given opportunities to perform with the Chopin Institute’s collection: Erards from Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, 1838, 1849 and 1855, Pleyels from 1848 as well as recording for the Chopin and 1854, and a Broadwood from 1843. Institute’s in-house label. Jury members © LOUIS-AUGUSTE BISSON Several copies of period instruments will for the inaugural competition include also be made available, including a replica Claire Chevallier, Nikolai Demidenko, of Chopin’s Buchholtz piano created Nelson Goerner, Ewa Pobłocka and specially for the Competition. Andreas Staier. Pianists of all nationalities aged 18 to The Real Chopin, a 21-CD box set of 35 are invited to apply by submitting the composer’s complete works for piano
COMPETITIONS NEWS The 15th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master The American Pianists Association has named 23-year-old Drew Competition in Tel Aviv has been won by Szymon Nehring. The Petersen as the recipient of this year’s American Pianists 21-year-old Polish pianist received the Gold Medal and $40k cash Award. Petersen came fourth at the 2015 Leeds International Piano prize, together with the award for Best Performer of a Chopin Piece, Competition with a performance of Rachmaninov’s First Concerto the Advanced Studies Prize and Junior Jury Prize. Peter Donohoe, described by the Guardian as having ‘perfectly captured the music’s one of the Competition's judges, said the jury vote for Nerhring was youthful ebullience and glitter’. He recently won the Sanders-Juilliard- almost unanimous. Tel Aviv Museum Prize and is currently pursuing a Masters at Juilliard The triennial Competition is an initiative of the Arthur Rubinstein with Robert McDonald. The American Pianists Award is given International Music Society and has been running since 1974. every four years and valued at over $100k, including $50k in cash, a Previous prizewinners include Emanuel Ax, Kirill Gerstein, Daniil recording contract with Steinway & Sons, two years of professional Trifonov, Igor Levit, Boris Gilburg, Janina Fialkowska and Seong-Jin development support and performance opportunities worldwide. Cho. www.arims.org.il www.americanpianists.org
July/August 2017 International Piano 9
IPJA17_008-009_R_News 0706OM.indd 9 07/06/2017 12:24 ONE TO WATCH Home from home Yulia Chaplina is one of the latest artists in an illustrious line of Russian émigré musicians who have made a profound cultural impact across national borders. Robert Turnbull discovers a pianist who celebrates her musical birthright wherever she plays and teaches, especially when she is at home in London
RANSCENDING ITS CURRENT POLITICAL AND Much has been made of the demise of the nationalist schools of economic sanctions, Russian artists are thankfully still piano playing in an era of globalisation. Only Russia, it seems, bucks free to visit the European continent and keep important the trend with young pianists from former Soviet Union countries Tchannels of communication open. That is unlikely to change. still emerging at an astonishing rate, all with very individual styles, After decades of enjoying a succession of great pianists, we can persuasive musical personalities and powerful techniques: ‘It’s very perhaps be forgiven for taking them for granted, but our concert normal there for young kids to start playing very early,’ Chaplina halls would feel bereft without them. says. ‘They just seems to get that head start. Russian pedagogic One of the latest talents to emerge is Yulia Chaplina. Born tradition is still unmatched and very, very rigorous. Technique is in Rostov-on-Don, in a region boasting cultural icons such as drilled into you practically from birth’. Chekhov and Musorgsky, Chaplina began lessons with her mother and made her debut, aged seven, with the Rostov State Symphony COURTESY OF RUSFOND UK Orchestra. After a brief spell in Moscow, where in 2004 she won the first prize in the Tchaikovsky Competition Junior Section, she moved to Berlin to study with Klaus Hellwig at the University of the Arts. Next stop was the Royal College of Music for lessons with compatriot Dmitri Alexeev. She currently resides in London with her British husband, pianist Jonathan Deakin, one of the founders of the Aurora Orchestra. In the UK, Chaplina began engaging with London’s large Russian community. She founded the Tchaikovsky London Music School in South Kensington, which she set up in March last year to provide quality education based on Russian methods of teaching. More recently she has been curating events at Pushkin House, a home for the Russian arts that is actually the oldest foreign culture centre in London. Chaplina loves teaching (especially children), lectures on music when she can and enjoys a busy schedule as a chamber musician and partnership with world-class orchestras. Her solo work tends to be mostly in Germany, where she has retained her old contacts, and Japan where she has enjoyed ‘an amazingly appreciative audience’. Chaplina never attended the Moscow Conservatory – which explains why she has yet to make an impact on the Russian musical scene – yet there is something quintessentially Russian about her playing. The technical fluency, intense lyricism and rich tonal shading are reminiscent of the great Communist era artists such as Emil Gilels and Samuil Feinberg. She is, in a sense, a chip off the old (Soviet) block.
Yulia Chaplina: ‘One needs to take breaths, to allow the music to sound natural.’
10 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_010-011_R_OnetoWatch_0606KC.indd 10 07/06/2017 15:28 ONE TO WATCH
Viennese classics and Bach but largely poo-pooed Russian music, ‘Russian pedagogic to Sir András Schiff, for whom she presented a version of Haydn’s Variations in F minor only to have them torn apart in one of his tradition is still unmatched masterclasses. Other pianists she admires are Marc-André Hamelin, Mitsuko Uchida and Daniil Trifonov. If anything unites them, it and very, very rigorous. is their meticulous phrasing, which, she feels, emulates the act of singing. ‘This is my one rule,’ she says. ‘One needs to take breaths, to Technique is drilled into allow the music to sound natural.’ Like most musicians, Chaplina is building a career which you practically from birth’ combines hard work and the sheer pleasure of playing. Winning several competitions has certainly raised her profile, but hasn’t affected her basic view that there is more to musical life than the drudgery and loneliness of the solo concert circuit. Next on the agenda is a recording of Russian music with her newly formed quartet Gamma Majoris, and a disc of rare Prokofiev transcriptions with violinist Yuri Kalnitz. Dmitri Alexeev’s influence has been crucial. This self-effacing e gentle giant won the Leeds piano competition in 1978 but now Gamma Majoris will release its debut album on the Champs Hill label spends his time teaching. His post-Leeds solo recitals in London in November 2017, featuring Yulia Chaplina on piano with Anastasia were must-see events, especially if they included Scriabin and Prokofieva (soprano), Ksenia Berezina (violin) and Alisa Liubarskaya Rachmaninov. Chaplina says, ‘The sense of the shape of music (cello). www.champshillrecords.co.uk phrases within the rhythm is the most valuable thing he taught me.’ There have been a wide range of other influences, from the Chaplina’s disc of Prokofiev transcriptions with Yuri Kalnitz is scheduled stern taskmaster Klaus Hellwig in Berlin, who coached her in the for release in 2018 by Toccata Classics. www.toccataclassics.com COURTESY OF RUSFOND UK
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IPJA17.indd 12 06/06/2017 15:29:41 COMMENT Young at heart get to its heart. Yet their responses can be Today’s youngsters have an advantage: It’s fine to revere as vivid as the first green leaves of spring. today anyone can hear Rachmaninov or They haven’t had time to become jaded, Cortot at the touch of a button. Thirty older pianists with or knackered, or both. Instead, they are years ago we still had to ferret them out new enough to the music to sound head of strange corners in second-hand LP an illustrious legacy over heels in love with it. Isn’t that why shops. I wouldn’t want to put the whole we could cherish the sound of Trifonov phenomenon down to Golden Age behind them, but conjuring almost unimaginable dream- rehabilitation. But it’s unlikely to be a colours in Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2? complete coincidence. don’t underestimate Or try Colli caressing the heavenly Aria Still, if we do value older pianists the power of of the Schumann F-sharp minor Sonata disproportionately, perhaps that is because No 1; Rana flooding the Royal Festival they are the survivors. Along the way some musicians in their Hall with an impassioned, devastating artists tragically burn out, develop physical Prokofiev Second Concerto in her debut problems or find themselves at odds with youthful prime, says there; Grosvenor lighting up the Proms the music business. Some enter premature with Saint-Saëns and Britten? The list retirement; others choose radical ways to Jessica Duchen could continue… pace themselves, which may not always please their fans. Martha Argerich has not given a solo recital in years; Grigory HE ATMOSPHERE AT Sokolov avoids concertos; Radu Lupu Mieczyslaw Horszowski’s 99th allegedly won’t give recitals in the London birthday concert at Wigmore Hall halls. There are always a few, too, who keep Tin 1991 resembled a church at which a saint going long after their physical capabilities had materialised. It was an extraordinary have begun to suffer, and audibly so. evening in the presence of this indubitably The saddest cases are those who, from wise and humane musician, and I feel wonderstruck beginnings, soon lose the lucky to have been there. Yet among other enraptured passion for music that set them unforgettable recitals I’ve heard, most of © FELIX BROEDE / SONY CLASSICAL on their paths and instead harden into the pianists were not of such advanced mannerism, gimmickry or overt selling years. Many were in their twenties. out. How many great talents who left us One benefit of getting older is witnessing thrilled when they were 18 or 20 have been how musicians develop over the decades. squandered, sometimes ruined, in the Some grow; some change; priorities decades since? Some can survive even that. shift. Often we’re more interested in the Igor Levit turns 30 this year Many don’t. profundity pianists may find at 65 (or 99) In the best cases, though, the elder than the supposed razzle-dazzle 40 years statespeople are yesterday’s prodigies all earlier… Isn’t there more to this, though, Astonishing young pianists are a grown up. Horszowski, born in 1892, had than physical bravura? In musical terms, perennial phenomenon, but I don’t been a full-blown wunderkind: he became there’s nothing quite like ‘that first fine, remember a time in my concert-going a pupil of Leschetizky at the age of seven, careless rapture’ (apologies to Robert life when there have been as many truly played to Fauré, met Saint-Saëns. Daniel Browning) – that sense of enchantment, inspiring ones as there are now. It’s been Barenboim turns 75 this year and has freshness, hunger for music and for intriguing to talk to them and try to work been celebrated since his teens. His recent communication which belongs chiefly out what’s going on among the piano’s Schubert and Beethoven series at the Royal to youth. Millennials. You can’t explain it all, and Festival Hall were phenomenal experiences Recently pianists whose performances perhaps global factors like ever-increasing – yet how I would have loved to hear him have left me simply walking on air have competition play a role. But it doesn’t also in his twenties, at the age when he first included Benjamin Grosvenor, Daniil take long to learn that either they love recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas Trifonov, Beatrice Rana, George Li, Igor recordings from the so-called Golden Age and Mozart concertos. Levit, Federico Colli and more. This year – Cortot and Rachmaninov, for instance – Wisdom may arrive with advancing Levit turns a mighty 30. The others are or they’re passionate fans of modern-day years; but the ecstasy of first love remains even younger. pianists who themselves were influenced underrated. Perhaps the wonderful thing Some insist that the twenty-somethings by earlier generations: Stephen Hough, for is that in the piano world there’s ample have not lived with music long enough to example, or András Schiff. room for both. e July/August 2017 International Piano 13
IPJA17_013_R_Comment_0606KC.indd 13 06/06/2017 17:13 THE ILL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
Why do we put the Austro-German concerto repertoire on a pedestal, at the expense of the delightful, inspiring and substantial works for piano and orchestra that have emerged in other cultural contexts? Charivari urges programmers to widen their horizons in an area of the repertoire that yields rich rewards for the adventurous PIERRE PETIT T THE BEGINNING OF APRIL this year, a post on Facebook from the distinguished British pianist APeter Donohoe announced that he was about to play Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No 4 for the first time. This is the most structurally innovative of all five of Saint- Saëns’ works in the genre and was once widely played – but no longer. All of the comments that Donohoe’s post received were positive, congratulatory and supportive with the exception of one sour note sounded by a fellow pianist who shall remain nameless. It read: ‘I am amazed you would want to expend the time and the effort to learn such a difficult piece, given that the musical/spiritual reward Camille Saint-Saëns: a second-rate composer? from Saint-Saëns is almost nil (second- rate composer). It is hard enough to play great music.’ This provoked a response faction which, sadly, permeates the whole It is these people – concert promoters from several people including, I noticed, music industry. These are the movers and and conductors foremost among them – IP’s own Jeremy Nicholas (‘Boo. Kill-joy. shakers who are in thrall to the hegemony who limit the choice of piano concerto Lighten up!’) and pianist James Rhodes of Austro-German music. If it isn’t Bach, repertoire we are able to hear in our concert (‘Oh come on! It’s an AMAZING concerto. Beethoven or Brahms, if it isn’t seen to have halls because of their lofty disdain for Filled with ideas and energy and a wealth of the profundity (however you define that) anything they deem less than Olympian in thematic material. Sublime orchestration of Schubert or Schumann, if it hasn’t the scale and aspiration. It is because of them too. 2nd rate composer my ass...’). spiritual heft of Mahler, Wagner, Bruckner we are fed the same predictable diet of Our anonymous pianist is a representative or any of the other long-winded A-listers, Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann – with of the Schnabel-Serkin-Brendel-Schiff then it is deemed second-rate and / or not the permitted exceptions of Tchaikovsky’s school: the austere voice of an influential worth bothering with. Piano Concerto No 1, Rachmaninov 2
14 International Piano July/August 2017
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and 3, Grieg, Liszt 1 and 2, Chopin 1 and Where and how did it start? Is there an the once-popular concertos of yesteryear; 2, the two Ravel concertos and Prokofiev ultimate arbiter of taste, a musical czar who and it takes a Dudamel to programme No 3. All masterpieces in their own way places Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto at the Ginastera’s Piano Concerto No 1 (and a – no disputing that – but a tiny fraction top and the Yellow River Concerto at the Sergio Tiempo to play it) in performances of the concerto repertoire we could be bottom? Why are angst and despair rated that have brought the house down. exposed to and which many pianists more highly than joy and exuberance? All it takes, in short, is the right artists would like to offer. For proof, look no Why suffering more than celebration? with the right temperament, determination further than the programme for this year’s Look no further than the Austro-German and curiosity to get together and give us Proms. Like every other year, it offers a hegemony. some alternatives to the ‘same-old, same- dispiriting selection of piano concertos old’. We need more Peter Donohoes that you can hear any day of the week, or playing works like Saint-Saëns’ Concerto during the previous Proms season. Yet this NTIL THE 20TH CENTURY, in C minor. He himself subscribes to same festival manages to make exciting very few of Mozart’s piano a concerto hierarchy, for his Facebook choral and orchestral discoveries each concertos were played regularly. thread continues, ‘It may not be in the year to play alongside the contemporary UNow, thank heavens, almost half of same league as Brahms 2 or Beethoven 4, orchestral works no one ever wants to them are standard repertoire; but it took and neither Saint-Saëns nor I would ever hear again. a Busoni, a Saint-Saëns (yes!) and a few say it was’. However, he concludes, ‘it is The result is we are sitting on a vast other high-profile virtuosi to make the still a terrific piece to listen to and to play; treasure chest of music about which the change. It took a Stephen Hough to dust well crafted, well orchestrated, cleverly majority of the music-loving public knows off Hummel’s Concerto in A minor and constructed, in places very beautiful and in absolutely nothing – and the last thing Scharwenka’s Fourth and remind us how others very exciting. I can think of a lot less we need are professional musicians telling forgotten and overlooked works can delight inspired and inspiring pieces.’ Indeed. And their peers not to waste time exploring it. us; it has taken brave record labels like where did he get the chance to perform it? Why do we allow this hierarchy in music? Vox, Hyperion and Dutton to let us hear The UK? Europe? No: Mexico! e PIERRE PETIT
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July/August 2017 International Piano 15
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16 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_016-022_F_CvrStory_0606KC.indd 16 06/06/2017 17:16 COVER STORY SHARED EXPERIENCE
Canadian-born Marc-André Hamelin’s unshowy virtuosity and unflagging enthusiasm for exploring neglected areas of the piano repertoire give him a unique standing among today’s leading pianists. Jeremy Nicholas spends time with an old friend who isn’t afraid to share the secrets of his artistic success, and the importance of developing the brain to confront musical challenges
OU HAVE TO LISTEN TO Berlin) and were performing on successive this before we go.’ Marc-André nights in Germany and Holland before fires up his laptop and plays flying to London. Neither had had very ‘Ya sound-clip of the last movement of much sleep before their Wigmore recital Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto played by and Hamelin had endured a splitting two trumpets. Accompanied by a straight- headache all day. A nap in the afternoon faced piano, one trumpet plays the solo saved him: ‘The public isn’t supposed to line an octave above Hummel’s original, know about these things. You are simply the other an octave below. It’s very funny. there to share the music – and, to a certain Hamelin laughs a big, generous, full- extent, sell it.’ throated laugh that is infectious. ‘Should I have known Marc-André for more I pack now?’ he asks. He’s cutting things than 25 years, and his playing for nearer fine, since he has to catch the evening 30. He has even recorded some of my flight to Dublin. songs (with his former wife, soprano The previous evening, I had enjoyed Jody Applebaum). Every time we meet, the Canadian pianist’s triumphant (sold- there is a sharing of enthusiasms. On this out) two-piano recital at Wigmore Hall occasion, he wanted to illustrate a musical with Leif Ove Andsnes. A programme of point and went to the piano. After all this Mozart, Debussy and Stravinsky (Concerto time, I had never noticed what slender
for two pianos, The Rite of Spring). The pair wrists he has. He shows me his stretch:
⌂ were preparing for several more dates in D-flat, F, A-flat, D-flat, F in the left hand; ⌂ Europe (they will record the programme in A-flat, D-flat, F, A-flat, D-flat in the right.
July/August 2017 International Piano 17
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IPJA17.indd 18 06/06/2017 15:29:42 COVER STORY
⌂ ‘I have broad hands and I always used to © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE believe I had thin fingers. In fact, they are much thicker and longer than you’d think.’ He plays an E-flat triad (in a passage from the last movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto). ‘I find it difficult to fit a finger on the G-natural between the E-flat and B-flat. It shouldn’t be a problem, but it is.’
NE OF THE MAIN REASONS for our meeting is to talk about Hamelin’s most recent Hyperion Orelease: Medtner’s Piano Concerto No 2 and Rachmaninov’s Concerto No 3 with the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski. Medtner has always been a consuming passion (his recording of all the sonatas is likely to remain the benchmark for many years, and he made important contributions to the now standard Dover edition). What continues to attract him to the composer? ‘An unbelievable sincerity. Just like Rachmaninov, his main purpose was to touch the listeners. Very often I feel Medtner is telling a wonderful story and really trying to draw you into his world. It’s not a world that’s always easy to access, but once you’ve penetrated it and got to know what it’s about, he’ll take a hold of you. I got to know the Second Concerto through a recording. From the very first time, I really liked it. Because of that I thought it would be relatively easy for audiences to take to it. But I’ve been surprised in recent performances to learn that people find it a little complex. To be fair, the writing is very intricate and rather complicated in a certain sense because Medtner built everything from a small number of themes ‘I did loads of technical exercises coupled with greater nimbleness in musical thinking’ and motifs. Almost everything he does is thematically connected.’ Why does Hamelin think Medtner is been unjustly neglected or ignored, and most demanding, stamina-sapping works – not better known? ‘The listener has to do which he has championed on disc, almost and lack of any extraneous gestures (‘Some a little work. He doesn’t sweep you away literally an A to Z of piano literature: people find it boring,’ he retorts in a like Rachmaninov, with whom he is most Alkan, Busoni, Catoire, Decaux, Eckhardt- typically self-deprecating remark). often and easily compared. I can tell you Grammaté, Feldman (of whom more What is Hamelin’s secret? ‘I’ve come that I have met scores of Medtner addicts! later), Godowsky ... Rzewski, Sorabji, to see more and more that it’s about So it is possible to get there – and really it Thuille, Wolpe. It was this constant communication, a one-to-one between doesn’t take that long. As far as Medtner’s voyage of discovery that won him his the artist and the audience. I believe there Second Concerto is concerned, not every unique reputation in the musical world, should be as few things in between to orchestra is ready to play it. To be fair, the combined with a fierce intellect, innate bring you back to reality. Yes, exaggerated way it is orchestrated means it is not always musicality and a technical prowess that is gestures at the keyboard are good PR. Yes, pleasant to play for them.’ the envy of even his most gifted peers. He they please a certain section of the concert-
Medtner is but one of the many is fascinating to watch in concert because going public. But that is not what I am composers whose music Hamelin feels has of his stillness at the keyboard – even in the after. I’ve said this so many times, but it ⌂
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IPJA17.indd 20 06/06/2017 15:29:46 COVER STORY
⌂ bears repeating. I don’t go on stage to show you have more of a brain for untangling myself. I go on stage to share. I like to textures, determining where the important ‘I don’t believe a revel in showing people my discoveries or parts are, I think it’s easier to deal with this concert should be find new or interesting ways to illuminate music. Compositionally you have to know what they already know. You have to be what is going on – especially when you’re a spectacle’ as convincing as possible and there must dealing with something that no one’s ever be as few barriers to that as possible, heard. You can’t just pick something off because I don’t believe a concert should the shelf and say “Oh this looks pretty!”, be a spectacle. I would like to believe that even if it’s a piece of wonderful fluff by people come to hear more than to see. Moszkowski, for example. He had real Of course that’s naïve. People want to see craft, and you have to delve into how he programme of Haydn (the two-movement hands and how it’s done. I understand put things together so marvellously.You do Sonata No 58 in C major), the first two that, but I have to stick to my guns here that as much for him as you would for the (very short) sonatas of Feinberg, and and go for the message.’ music of Samuil Feinberg, whose music is Beethoven’s Appassionata, with a second The great Hungarian virtuoso Georges really very complex. So that’s part of it. I half of either Scriabin 7 and Chopin Cziffra was said to be able to achieve his started early – that helps – and I did loads 2 or the Schumann Fantaisie; another effects because of his unusually developed of technical exercises but coupled with programme of the Schumann with the physiological and neurological reflexes. what I would call greater nimbleness in Schubert B-flat Sonata D960; another It strikes me that these factors may be musical thinking.’ programme of Szymanowska (Nocturne), the source of Hamelin’s extraordinary To give me some idea of the variety and Liszt, Prokofiev, Feinberg Sonatas 5 and technique too. ‘It may actually not be breadth of his current repertoire, I looked 6, and two of Lyapunov’s Transcendental either of those factors,’ the pianist counters. at his website before we met. Here are the Études; the premiere of his Piano Quintet; ‘I think it’s more analytical, because works he played in the first four months four performances of the Medtner Second; a thorough grounding in harmony, of 2017: his first performance (‘believe and the two-piano programme with counterpoint, analysis and theory, it or not,’ he says) of the Ravel Concerto Andsnes. That’s a lot of incredibly different
knowing the mechanics of music and in G major followed by Shostakovich’s and varied music. developing a mind for music will get you Concerto No 1 the next day (‘which I’ve Of all the pianists I have ever met, none ⌂ much farther than you might think. When been playing for 30 years, so that’s fine’); a has such an encyclopaedic and detailed
‘I just played what I bloody well liked and I never had any career guidance’ © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE
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⌂ knowledge of the piano literature, its age but I wanted people to hear these [three Has he commissioned any works? ‘No, exponents and recordings as Hamelin. Études]. I’m quite proud of that CD. And and that’s a source of great sadness. I should He has such an omnivorous appetite for I also had the luck of being with a high- like to, but because of the reputation repertoire, I ask him if there is any part of profile label like Hyperion who didn’t I have, almost every single composer I it which he wouldn’t consider, music which hesitate one second when I suggested talk to has said, “Oh I could never write simply doesn’t appeal to him. ‘I was asked Roslavets – to their credit, because I had anything difficult enough for you”. That to record a large portion of the left-hand only just started recording with them. makes me very sad. They don’t realise I piano and orchestra works commissioned From the very beginning they were very take so much pleasure in playing things by Paul Wittgenstein,’ he replies after some open to these arcane projects.’ like Janáček’s Overgrown Path pieces, which thought, ‘but I have such an antipathy The latest work that Hamelin wishes to are pianistically very simple but contain to the two Strauss pieces [Parergon and share with us on disc is For Bunita Marcus, worlds of emotion. These are some of my Panathenäenzug] which I think are pretty by Morton Feldman. ‘The piece has already favourite things!’ much rubbish, that that was enough to been recorded about a dozen times, albeit Over lunch, Hamelin has been talking turn me off.’ on small labels, but I did it because I love about a future major solo project: he will So many pianists seem to be spoon-fed: it. When I discovered it, I was startled at record the first six [of 12] sonatas by Samuil they play what they see others have played how affected I was by the music. It’s an Feinberg in the summer of 2018 for release and venture no further than the standard unbroken 72-minute stretch of triple piano the following year. ‘It is not repertoire that repertoire. Why are pianists not more – one ppp dynamic at the beginning – very will be eagerly taken up by pianists,’ he curious creatures? Why, to put it bluntly, few notes, lots of repeating patterns and, assures me, ‘but he was such an individual aren’t there more Marc-André Hamelins? except for a few short passages, the pedal voice that he can’t be ignored. Have we got ‘You mean why aren’t there more people as is held down for the whole work.’ Writing time for the First Sonata?’ Our host assures foolish as I am?’ he chuckles. ‘Musorgsky, in the Hyperion booklet, Hamelin admits us we have. We hear the whole of the work. Stravinsky – and we know which pieces, that the first time he sat down to play the Hamelin at the piano. It’s too tempting not don’t we? – are heard to death. People piece was extraordinary: ‘In all my years of to ask for something more, a short piece, feel safer. In terms of box office, they’re exploring the more obscure regions of the something I have long wanted to hear more of a certainty.’ He admits he didn’t literature for my instrument, I’d never felt him play. ‘Do you know Ante el Escorial by help himself in his early career, and only anything like it.’ Lecuona?’ I ask him. Incredibly enough, got an American management because he doesn’t, but our host obligingly digs of winning the 1985 Carnegie Hall out a score and the piece (not an easy read) Competition. ‘Otherwise no one would AMELIN HAS ALWAYS is swallowed whole. Hamelin, with his have taken me on with the repertoire I was composed, a leading light in nimble thinking in action, makes a mental playing. I just played what I bloody well the slow return to a tradition note of it: it would make a good encore… liked and I never had any career guidance ofH virtuosi instrumentalists writing and ‘I really think you ought to go and pack as far as that goes. You’d be surprised playing their own works. His formidable 12 now, Marc,’ says our host. how many mistakes I made. My choice of Études in all the Minor Keys was published e management was entirely arbitrary. They by Peters in 2010. The next collection will Marc-André Hamelin’s recording of Medtner’s were completely inactive in getting me appear in a few months (he describes it as Piano Concerto No 2 and Rachmaninov’s bookings and I was stuck with them for ‘a small volume’) and will include a dozen Piano Concerto No 3 with Vladimir Jurowski 15 years. That’s why I consider myself a miniatures written over the years, such as and the London Philharmonic Orchestra late starter.’ his Little Nocturne, hilarious Ligeti-style is now available from Hyperion Records These days there are fewer ‘rarities’ ‘completion’ of the Minute Waltz, the jaw- (CDA68145). www.hyperion-records.co.uk in his recital programmes and a greater dropping cadenza for Liszt’s Hungarian emphasis on the standard repertoire. Rhapsody No 2, a piece based on the www.marcandrehamelin.com ‘Some of this,’ he says, ‘has to do with famous theme song for the 1945 film Laura, youth, and the attraction one has at that a Chopin/Godowsky Étude completion, age to the wonderful and strange, which and others. Nowadays, he tells me, he was certainly so in my case. I would look has less of an urge to compose, but that at these scores and there would be no has coincided with him getting more and recordings and my first thought was “I more commissions, three of them over the want to hear this”. I remember looking past 18 months: a piece for cello and piano at the first Étude of Roslavets and I was so for the La Jolla Summerfest in San Diego, scared because it was littered (gratuitously, the Piano Quintet and a piano solo for the I think) with double sharps and double forthcoming Van Cliburn Competition, flats. I had to re-notate it entirely, an obligatory solo work for the contestants simplifying the accidentals. That shows to perform. Hamelin will be one of the something of my commitment! It took an jury members.
22 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_016-022_F_CvrStory_0606KC.indd 22 06/06/2017 17:17 NEW TO MANCHESTER
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IPJA17.indd 24 07/06/2017 17:20:27 PIANIST-COMPOSERS OWN BRAND Many great composers are decent pianists, but great pianists who write substantially for themselves to perform tend to be taken less seriously as composers. Benjamin Ivry celebrates the achievements of these pianist-composers, and highlights some works that throw light on their inspiration and artistry at the keyboard
OMPOSERS WHO PLAY THE PIANO FOR PRACTICAL recognised composer/orator/statesman as well as pianist, Liszt purposes and pianists who write music from inner pupil Emil von Sauer (1862-1942) produced the witty miniature necessity are different beings: composer-pianists and Music Box (Boîte à musique), catnip for such performers as Karol pianist-composers.C If we disqualify pieces by those principally Szreter (although rather more po-faced in Sauer’s own recording). known as composers, glitzy display works, and didactic études, Sauer’s Aspen Leaf (Espenlaub) is a more earnest assertion of music written by pianist-composers can be compelling and humanity, better suited to the pianist’s temperament, like the sometimes overlooked, perhaps in part because they are not taken elegant nostalgia of his Echo from Vienna (Echo aus Wien) and so seriously as those by full-time composers. Concert Galop, giving the impression that Sauer had witnessed Unlike the authors of most compositions performed in concert, the can-can being danced in French estaminets during the pianist-composers are alive and present, adding vivacity to the Belle Époque. occasion. Recitals can become uniquely personal statements. In Unlike the massive landscape of Carnaval de Vienne by Moriz the 19th century, Clara Schumann (1819-1896) wrote a Piano Rosenthal (1862-1946), an arrangement of Johann Strauss, Trio, Op 17 (1846) that is an ardent triangular conversation. Quite Rosenthal’s winsome Papillons is as evanescent as the butterflies it appropriate for a musician at the centre of one of music’s most evokes. While not rivalling Schumann’s Op 2, Rosenthal’s Papillons renowned love triangles: Schumann/Schumann/Brahms. Despite provided an amuse-bouche for such pianists as Arthur Friedheim real-life fraught interactions by these parties, the Trio exudes and the composer himself. More worldly experience is audible in the relaxed assurance and easy-going nonchalance. Clara’s solo Scherzo urbane Concerto No 3 (Concertino) for piano and small orchestra No 1 in D minor, Op 10 (1838) follows her husband into the wilder (1932) by the Belgian Arthur de Greef (1862-1940), with the off- reaches of Romantic imaginings. Like Robert Schumann’s song kilter exuberance of a big-city boulevardier. There is a touch of Der Kontrabandiste (The Smuggler), memorably arranged for solo Rachmaninov in this Concertino, but the writing for piano is direct piano by Carl Tausig, Clara’s Scherzo is a mise-en-scène marked by and heartfelt, as to be expected from a leading interpreter of music dramatic frenzy. by Edvard Grieg. Another acclaimed Victorian grande dame of the keyboard, Caprice Orientale by the Polish pedagogue Sigismond Stojowski Marie Jaëll (1846–1925), wrote the disarmingly candid Six (1870-1946) has alluring seriousness, while his lyrical impulse in his petits morceaux pour piano (1871), a self-avowal of sorts. Jaëll’s Prelude Op 1 No 2 has attracted champions such as the British pianist Schumannesque ‘Feuillet d’album’ (Albumblatt, 1871) likewise has Jonathan Plowright. In a movement from the Java Suite (1924-1925) the emotional candour of a passionate song. An even more splashy of Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) entitled Gardens of Buitenzorg, the piano diva, Teresa Carreño (1853–1917), delighted audiences Dutch name for today’s Bogor in Indonesia, a sensuous landscape in with waltzes such as The Child’s Dream (El sueño del niño), gently sound is constructed from gorgeous piano effects. Josef Hofmann’s rocking with maternal affection, and Wrong Note (La falsa nota) (1876-1957) Berceuse Op 20 No 5 has simplicity, and his Kaleidoscope characterising the soloist as an impish slyboots. My Teresita is an from Character Sketches Op 40, dedicated to Godowsky, is a dazzler in undisguised self-portrait, confident, assertive and romantic. intent and effect. Quasi-Wagnerian grandeur adds weight, transcending the genre of showy encores. Hofmann’s ‘Penguins’ from Three Impressions (1915), is good-humoured and zesty, with an intriguing dash
ERE MALE PIANISTS IN THE 19TH AND EARLY of petulance. 20th centuries less personal in their compositions? Amiability and vigour were bywords for Ossip Gabrilowitsch ⌂ WSetting aside Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941), a (1878-1936) in Caprice Op 3, while his Mélodie in E minor Op 8 July/August 2017 International Piano 25
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Splashy Venezuelan piano diva Teresa Carreño Samuil Feinberg: composer-pianist or pianist-composer?
⌂ is genuinely haunting. Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948) managed to less enticing, with a lacemaker’s delicacy that was a trademark of combine nostalgia and ruefulness in waltz-inspired works recalling his pianism. Bolder, Feinberg’s Second Piano Concerto (1946) is society dances of eras past. The Eduard Gaertner-Friedman Viennese feisty, even martial, with Tchaikovsky-like panache. Dances attracted pianists from Grigory Ginzburg to Victor Borge. The warmth of these trifles made Friedman’s arrangements deeply personal, just as the violinist Fritz Kriesler put his imprimatur on OME MIGHTY INTERPRETERS LEFT CREATIVITY A BIT works he transcribed. Friedman’s charmingly titled She Dances late, such as the Frenchman Yves Nat (1890-1956), an impactful (Elle Danse) Op 10 No 5 is wistfully disarming, with some of the performer of the German Romantics who premiered his Piano innocence of childhood. His Music Box Op 33 No 3 possesses SConcerto only a year before his death. Its lumbering unevenness even more magic than Sauer’s effort, with tintinnabulation like a cannot begin to compare in quality to Nat’s majestic renditions of glockenspiel. other composer’s ideas. A happier fate was destined for Wilhelm Capturing the pianist at an early bon vivant stage, Artur Kempff (1895-1991). Of Kempff’s many transcriptions, perhaps the Schnabel’s (1882-1951) Rondo from his Piano Concerto (1901) most memorable was of Bach’s Siciliano BWV 1031. The recording is unusually melodious for a Schnabel work, especially when by Dinu Lipatti has a spooky balletic grace, alongside which even played by his daughter-in-law Helen Schnabel (Town Hall Kempff’s own version from 1931 sounds surprisingly turgid. Less- Records THCD-65). Most of Schnabel’s works are oppressively than-superstar status can also keep a pianist’s works from finding harsh and stern, even one deceptively entitled Foxtrot. By contrast, an audience. Switzerland’s long-overlooked Ernst Lévy (1895-1981) the delight emanating from the Russian Samuil Feinberg’s imbued his Piano Sonata No 4 with lofty Alpine vision, but few heard (1890-1962) oeuvre may inspire posterity to rebrand him as a it. Unjustly neglected as both pianist and composer is the American composer-pianist rather than just a pianist-composer. Feinberg’s Beryl Rubinstein (1898-1952), whose Suite for Two Pianos (1939) has Suite No 1, Op 11 (1922) transfigures the étude in pellucid style. the crystalline urbanity of a French modernist statement, remarkable With movements marked cantando and cantabile, the importance from someone whose teaching career was mostly spent in Cleveland. of song is evident, a lyricism likely deriving from mid 19th- An ideal recording by Rubinstein and his friend and colleague Arthur century Russian opera. Feinberg’s Suite No 2, Op 25 (1936) is no Loesser has not yet given the Suite the prominence it deserves.
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IPJA17_025-028_F_PianistComposers 0706BWM.indd 26 07/06/2017 15:27 PIANIST-COMPOSERS © TULLY POTTER COLLECTION No such obscurity dogged the creativity of the Russian Mischa created the holistic Piano Music for Children (Klaviermusik für Levitzki (1898-1941), whose slinky and seductive waltzes, such as Kinder, 1960), benign and free of looming paternal presences, even Valse Amour Op 2 and Arabesque Valsante Op 6 epitomise seduction in miniatures where they are suggested, such as ‘Mama and Papa are through sensual memory. More architecturally ambitious works by Talking’ and ‘Daddy is Home’. Apparently free of any parental issues, France’s Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) include the lucid, bright the pedagogue Pierre Sancan (1916-2008) from southern France Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op 17 (1933). Ravel, the wrote the brisk, sly Mouvement and yet another Music Box (Boîte pianist’s friend, was more of an influence on Casadesus’ Op 17 than à Musique), this one too overtly jokey. Indisputably serious, even the latter’s closer contemporary, Francis Poulenc. With sobriety and ominous were some works by the Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti open-heartedness possibly deriving from Casadesus’ Catalan family (1917-1950). Lipatti’s Sonatina for the Left Hand, with its inexorably origins, his Concerto occasionally echoes early Aaron Copland. advancing melody, foreshadows the early demise that would be his More angular, although no less winning, is Casadesus’ Concerto fate. Lipatti’s Concertino in Classical Style for Piano and Chamber for Three Pianos, Op 65 (1964). His lucid, crystalline Toccata for Orchestra, Op 3 (1936) is preternaturally graceful and Mozartian, Piano, Op 40 (1946), unlike many toccatas written by pianists, does while his Romanian Dances for Piano and Orchestra (1945) express not sound like a hollow exercise in style. A pianistic wit rivalling idiomatic assurance and unadorned naturalness. any Gallic model, America’s Oscar Levant (1906-1972) wrote pop hits in the 1920s such as Loveable and Sweet and later penned the jazz standard Blame It on My Youth. A student of Stojowski and S THE 20TH CENTURY WORE ON, SOME PIANISTS permanent denizen of the psychiatrist’s couch, Levant made were increasingly influenced by popular media. America’s his disjointed Piano Concerto (1936) a relentlessly introspective, Leonard Pennario (1924-2008) penned Midnight on convincing self-portrait. Athe Cliffs, quasi-hysterical soundtrack music written for Julie, a
Levant was endlessly plaintive about mother issues; another 1956 Doris Day movie. Its overwrought Hollywoodiana is all in pianist-composer with every right to feel Oedipal conflicts about good fun. Highly personalized liveliness, delight and gusto are ⌂ composing was Soulima Stravinsky (1910-1994). Soulima duly communicated by the best music by the Austrian Friedrich Gulda
French pianist Robert Casadesus wrote lucid, architecturally ambitious works © TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
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IPJA17_025-028_F_PianistComposers 0706BWM.indd 27 07/06/2017 15:27 PIANIST-COMPOSERS © RUIMIN WANG of the American Michael Brown (b 1987), a student of Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School. Brown’s Folk Variations (2013) is an authentic major work, in which close listening, especially to silence, is treasured. In theme-and-variations form, based around the tune Yankee Doodle, it has the added complexity of not actually including the melody of Yankee Doodle in its thematic section. Instead, Brown explains, Folk Variations ‘rather uses [the song’s] pitches rearranged and stacked vertically to create a more modern “American” sonority.’ One of the most refined of all pianist-composers, Brown may, like Samuil Feinberg, eventually be promoted to the status of composer-pianist. Unsubtle to a fault is China’s Peng-Peng Gong (b 1992), preoccupied with grandiose heroic posturing. This is so even in Gong’s Hourly Reminiscence for Piano and Orchestra (2011), inspired by The Story of an Hour, a short story by the 19th-century American author Kate Chopin. In it, an ailing woman, feeling relief on hearing the news of her husband’s demise, drops dead when he turns out to be alive after all. This poignant theme inspires blustering, loud effects from Gong, who redeems himself with an improvised in- concert transcription (2013) of Puccini’s ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Tosca, in which sheer decibel level was not a key element. The Chinese- American Conrad Tao (b 1994) created and recorded pieces of astonishing emotional maturity at 12 years old, but has lately been hampered by tiresome influences of minimalism and high-tech, in his Iridescence, for piano and iPad (2013). Tao’s stunning talents augur well for the future, and this hope is also represented by the American Andrew Guo (b 1999), like Tao a student of the late Emilio del Rosario in Illinois. Inspired by del Rosario’s emphasis on the playful nature of pianism, Guo’s Seven Images for Solo Piano (2015) is youthful, jejune even, but precisely reflects its pianist- composer, looking towards the future. Chinese-American Conrad Tao’s stunning talents augur well for the future e
⌂ (1930-2000). Harking back to the self-portrait paradigm of Clara Schumann and Marie Jaëll are Gulda’s works dedicated to his SUGGESTED LISTENING young sons, For Paul and For Rico, both from 1974; Concerto for 10 works you should know by pianist-composers Myself: Sonata Concertante for Piano and Orchestra (1988); and the graceful, popular Aria (1989). The ever-growing adulation for Clara Schumann Piano Trio Op 17 (1846) Glenn Gould (1932-1982) has ensured that his solo piano works, Marie Jaëll Six petits morceaux pour piano (1871) including the two-movement Sonata for Piano (1948-50) and 2 Concerto No 3 (Concertino) for Piano Pieces (c1951-52), have been recorded, although they lack the Arthur de Greef piano and small orchestra (1932) charm of his So You Want to Write a Fugue? for four solo voices and piano or string quartet (1963). British pianist John Ogdon (1937- Ossip Gabrilowitsch Mélodie in E minor Op 8 (1908) 1989) produced a more externalised landscape in his Sonata No 4: An American Sonata. Ogdon’s view of America is inevitably exotic, Ignaz Friedman ‘Elle Danse’ from 5 Causeries Op from an opening movement evoking the emptiness of the great 10 (1904) plains to an elegy for the US composer Samuel Barber, followed by Samuil Feinberg Suite No 1 – 4 pieces in étude a barn dance like a moto perpetuo machine. form Op 11 (1922) Transcriptions and other doughty services to music of the past Beryl Rubinstein Suite for Two Pianos (1939) by Marc-André Hamelin (b 1961) are highlighted elsewhere in Robert Casadesus Concerto for Two Pianos and this issue (see cover feature, from page 16), but his wit without Orchestra Op 17 (1933) self-seriousness is worth remarking upon. Stephen Hough (b 1961) Dinu Lipatti Romanian Dances for Piano and has a comparable tongue-in-cheek attitude, particularly in his Orchestra (1945) Radetzky Waltz, a reappropriation of the Radetzky March by Johann Michael Brown Folk Variations (2013) Strauss I. High seriousness, on the other hand, is the approach
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Free rush hour concerts in the heart of London © SUSSIE AHLBURG © SUSSIE
Chiaroscuro Quartet Tuesday 4 July 2017 | 6.15pm drinks reception | 7pm recital Conway Hall, London
Formed in 2005, the Chiaroscuro Quartet comprises violinists Alina Ibragimova (Russia) and Pablo Hernán Benedí (Spain), the Swedish violist Emilie Hörnlund and cellist Claire Thirion from France. Dubbed ‘a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music’ in Gramophone, this international ensemble performs music of the Classical and early Romantic periods on gut strings and with historical bows. The quartet’s unique sound – described in The Observer as ‘a shock to the ears of the best kind’ – is highly acclaimed by audiences and critics all over Europe. The quartet will performs works from their second volume of Haydn ‘Sun’ Quartets, launching their new BIS recording. This concert will be preceded by a complimentary drinks reception for ticket holders and is followed by an informal Q&A with the artists conducted by the editor of Classical Music.
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RGLIVE_0717_FPIPJA17.indd 29 ad.indd 1 06/06/201726/04/2017 15:29:50 11:34 PUBLISHING SCORING POINTS A new edition of Hummel’s Piano Concerto in A minor proves that he is more than a one-hit wonder, revealing a composer with a fine understanding of the keyboard. Andrew Brownell discusses the challenges and rewards of editing and playing Hummel’s piano music
Johann Nepomuk Hummel in 1814 OHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL IS ONE OF THOSE composers you are more likely to have heard about, rather Jthan actually heard. For many decades, the only work of his encountered in the concert hall was the Trumpet Concerto, which is an unfortunate irony as Hummel was indisputably one of the greatest pianists of his day, and he wrote a rich body of music for the instrument. His œuvre also includes a fair amount of chamber music (including the prototype for Schubert’s Trout Quintet), and his small output of church music, grounded in the Viennese Classical idiom, is ripe for rediscovery. The mature piano concertos of Hummel are unique works, bridging the stylistic gulf between Beethoven’s Emperor of c1810 and the next concerto (chronologically speaking) in the standard repertoire, the Chopin F minor from around 20 years later. In Hummel’s concertos, arching cantabile lines, some of them profusely decorated with proto-Chopinesque fioritura, alternate with passages of fiendish technical difficulty, pointing to the stylistic characteristics of the early Romantic piano concerto; this all occurs within the framework of a Classical concerto structure, even if its formal functions are occasionally relaxed. Although Hummel’s piano concertos have essentially disappeared from the concert hall today, they were central to the repertoire for much of the 19th century: Chopin kept some of them in his active repertoire, the young Liszt amazed audiences with his performances of the Concerto in B minor Op 89, and Franck played Hummel concerti in his youth when he was pursuing a career as a pianist. In doing so, these composer-pianists seem to have been observing a custom of the time that one played Hummel at a formal concerto debut. (For more on this apparent tradition, see Chapter 11 of Mark Kroll’s Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician’s Life and World.) It is unclear when and why Hummel’s concerti fell out of the active repertoire, but by 1893, when Vladimir de Pachmann programmed Op 89, the New York Times referred to the performance as a ‘revival’.
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Example 1: Hummel’s autograph of the piano part, with instructions for the engraver: ‘NB. Die Tutti’s, und zwar die rechte Hand wird durchaus mit kleinen Nöttgen [?] gestochen...’ [The tuttis, ie the right hand, are to be engraved throughout with small notes...]. Courtesy of Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt-am-Main
MAJOR OBSTACLE TO THE REDISCOVERY OF manuscript that must have served as a common source and provided lesser-known music is the shortage of available scores. authoritative readings of the orchestral parts (see Example 1, above). Publishers, understandably wary of poor sales, are cautious For this new edition of Hummel’s Concerto in A minor, I decided Aabout bringing out new editions of largely forgotten music, thus to provide the figured bass, as found in the sources, in passages perpetuating a cycle of obscurity. I was therefore delighted to where the piano is not active as a solo instrument. This decision collaborate with Breitkopf & Härtel on a new edition of Hummel’s was taken for two reasons. Firstly, it appears in virtually all the Piano Concerto in A minor Op 85. Having both this and Op 89 source material, and Hummel’s autograph of the piano part even in my repertoire, I know from experience how problematic the has specific instructions to the publisher on how the figures should available material was. In the case of Op 85, the last edition of the be engraved. Secondly, the presence of a continuous bass line seems piano part had been printed by Peters in the 1890s. The available an invaluable aid to the pianist in conceiving of the solo as part of orchestral material was handwritten, probably also sometime in a whole and thereby informing interpretive decisions. (The Neue the late 19th century, and the conductor’s score was an occasionally Mozart Ausgabe, not without some controversy, provided bass lines illegible mess, with instruments randomly switching positions at during tuttis in the piano part, just as keyboardists of the time page turns. A new edition was overdue. would have seen them. By contrast, nearly all modern editors have The most relevant source material presents an interesting removed this information from the Beethoven concerti.) situation. The British Library holds an autograph of the first Why does this matter? The practice of col basso playing (ie movement in full score; however, it is an early draft in which the ‘accompanying’ the orchestra during tuttis) in piano concerti of the keyboard part lacks phrasing, dynamics and most of the florid Classical period is an extensive subject that continues to generate ornamental writing, and is therefore of limited use as a source. debate amongst performers and musicologists. Even when the The only other source in Hummel’s hand is an arrangement for pianist observes the modern practice of remaining tacet during two pianos (with tutti passages distributed between both pianos); the tuttis, there are numerous passages where the dividing line there are many notes or corrections in grey and red pencil, and the between solo and tutti bass notes is ambiguous, and times at which first page of the solo part also has some handwritten instructions an accompanying chord may be desirable. The pianist cannot make for an engraver. The solo part of this autograph agrees with the informed interpretive decisions about these moments if the editor first edition (Steiner of Vienna, c1821) to such an extent that it was chooses to withhold the complete bass line. Hummel’s piano almost certainly used as a printer’s copy. I consequently decided to writing in Op 85 is so unrelenting that the concerto rarely presents base the piano part on these two sources. such moments, but an exception is the following passage in the A full score in the very clean hand of Jan Voříšek, Hummel’s slow movement (shown in Example 2, overleaf). favourite pupil in Vienna, further corroborates the readings of the two- Taken literally, the pianist would play all the left-hand quavers in
piano autograph and the Steiner edition. It seems logical that Voříšek’s bars 37, 39 and 41. Yet it is clear from the orchestral reduction that manuscript was copied before Hummel left Vienna in 1816, in which these bass notes double the low strings, and the figure ‘6’ in these ⌂ case the consensus between these sources points to another lost bars indicates that the piano’s role is accompanimental. Given
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Example 2: II, bars 37-42 (© 2016 by Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden)
⌂ that the modern practice is for the pianist not to play col basso, it with an octave c2-c3 in the left hand. This may not be what is written, seems an equally valid decision not to play in these measures (apart but the examples from both these movements demonstrate that from the downbeat). If one takes this decision, one could even blindly playing what is written (or however much of it the editor conceivably resolve the left hand at the downbeat of bar 41 with a chooses to transmit) can produce awkward results. An awareness three-voice chord, as correct voice-leading would dictate. A similar of the bass line and its function, combined with a willingness situation occurs in the last movement (see Example 3, opposite). to engage with the notation in the spirit of col basso playing, can At this climactic cadence, the two hands play a double trill, whose instead produce creative solutions to certain passages. However, resolution launches a brief tutti. Reading from the Peters edition, this is only possible when the complete bass line is present. the left hand must complete the trill – and its termination – then fly down the keyboard for a bass C-octave. Hummel’s music may be full of technical stunts, but in this case, such a drastic leap seems T IS STRANGE THAT HUMMEL’S PIANO CONCERTOS, pointless. When the complete bass line is presented, however, it which once occupied a central role in the repertoire, should becomes clear that this unexpected shift of register is actually the have lapsed into obscurity. When considering their virtuosity start of the orchestral bass line (see Example 4, oppposite). Iand accessibility, and the continuity they provide between the The sensible solution in performance is to resolve the cadence concerti of Beethoven and Chopin, their appeal seems obvious.
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Example 3: III, bars 169-74 (Peters, 1899) Example 4: III, bars 171-75 (Steiner, c1821)
The recording of Opp 85 and 89 by Stephen Hough, with Andrew Brownell won Second Prize Bryden Thomson and the English Chamber Orchestra (Chandos at the 2006 Leeds Competition and is CHAN8507), has probably done more in recent decades to an active performer throughout Europe improve Hummel’s reputation than any other endeavour. I would and North America. He was recently also recommend the very fine recording on period instruments appointed assistant professor at the by Alessandro Commellato, with Didier Talpain and Solamente Butler School of Music, The University Naturali (Brilliant Classics 94338), for which an early draft of my of Texas at Austin. full score was used. www.andrewbrownell.com I hope my new edition of Hummel’s Op 85 will make available again for performance a concerto that was once standard repertoire, The two-piano score of Hummel’s Piano Concerto in A minor Op 85 is and that it will lead to further exploration and re-evaluation of now available from Breitkopf & Härtel (EB8900). Orchestral material is Hummel’s music. also available for hire. www.breitkopf.com/work/9432 e
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IPJA17_030-033_F_Hummel 0706OM.indd 33 07/06/2017 17:19:18 FESTIVAL PREVIEW SIM CANETTY-CLARKE RED © OCTOBER Following its successful launch last year, the London Piano Festival is back for round two, with a focus on Russian works and artists with roots in Russia, marking the centenary of the October Revolution in 1917. Colin Clarke unveils this year’s exciting line-up at Kings Place
HE INAUGURAL LONDON PIANO FESTIVAL (LPF) Premieres are important to the London Piano Festival: a YouTube established its credentials at Kings Place in autumn 2016, video shows the stirring, exciting premiere of Nico Muhly’s Fast generating enthusiasm and critical acclaim. The Festival Patterns last year (youtu.be/aZng4NfXziY). The Russian-born Treturns this year, from 5 to 8 October, promising an even greater British composer Elena Langer, perhaps most famous for her depth and breadth of repertoire and a high calibre of guest artists. acclaimed opera Figaro Gets a Divorce (a ‘must-see’, says Apekisheva), The theme this year, devised by LPF’s artistic directors Charles offers a new piece. Apekisheva and Langer are long-time friends Owen and Katya Apekisheva, is Russia. Perfectly timed to reflect and Apekisheva is unstinting in her praise for Langer’s music: ‘She the centenary of the October 1917 Revolution, the choice of is an extraordinary composer with a unique voice, her music is so territory for the Festival reflects not only Apekisheva’s roots, but vibrant and varied.’ also that she and Owen share a teacher in the Kiev-born, Moscow Although Langer’s original intention was to base her new piece trained Irina Zaritskaya, who spent her final years before her death on 1917 paintings by Kandinsky (with images projected, on stage), in 2001 living and teaching in London. the recent Royal Academy exhibition, Revolution, led Langer to a Repertoire highlights this year include Rachmaninov’s Second painting by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Red Mare (from which her new Suite (performed by Owen and Apekisheva); Weinberg’s Second piece takes its title). We may still get some Kandinsky projected as Sonata (Apekisheva); and Rachmaninov’s Sonata No 1, played part of the experience, or even a collage of Kandinsky, Malevich by Russian-born New York resident Ilya Itin, winner of the 1996 and Red Mare. Langer describes the painting as ‘realistic and surreal Leeds International Piano Competition. Apekisheva was a finalist at the same time’, while the tension between the horse moving in that very competition, and she admires Itin for his ‘dignity, depth forward and the person looking backwards provides an impetus and beautiful tone’. The Weinberg sonata is particularly significant for the energy of the piece: ‘It will be fast,’ Langer says, ‘short since, in spite of attempts to revive his popularity (most notably and virtuosic’. Langer’s own musical voice has become ever more perhaps, ENO’s staging of his opera The Passenger in 2011), his approachable over her composing life (‘I am writing A Tune a Day,’ music still does not have the place in the repertoire it deserves. she admits, with a smile). Apekisheva was asked to play the Second Sonata for the Brundibár Melvyn Tan was one of the stars of the recent All About Piano! Arts Festival in Newcastle in January this year. ‘From the moment festival at the French Institute in Kensington (reviewed on page 53 I started learning this piece I realised what a powerful work it is… of this issue). He presents another world premiere for the London Weinberg deserves serious attention,’ she says. Piano Festival, Kevin Volans’ L’Africaine in a programme entitled Meanwhile, the Austrian-Russian pianist Lisa Smirnova will play ‘Dances and Mirrors’, including music by Ravel (Miroirs and Valses works by Scarlatti, Mozart and Handel. Smirnova has been likened nobles et sentimentales) and Weber (Introduction to the Dance). to Glenn Gould by the press (though my own first impressions The Festival sees the return of the hugely popular Two-Piano brought to mind Tatiana Nikolayeva). Smirnova, like Apekisheva, Marathon, when a group of pianists play in different combinations studied with Anna Pavlovna Kantor, an influential teacher at the over a three-part evening. Adams’ Hallelujah Junction will provide Gnessen School for Gifted Children in Moscow. Smirnova is not an intense starting point; the high-jinks of Lutosławski’s Paganini very well-known in the UK, though, and this fact was part of the Variations should end the evening on a high. It’s good to see ROBERT WORKMAN
impetus to include her. She has recorded the Handel Suites for ECM. London-born Danny Driver participating, after his successful ©
34 International Piano July/August 2017
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St John’s recital (reviewed in IP Jan/Feb 2017). Once more, there is an event for children. Last
SIM CANETTY-CLARKE year saw delightful Sunday © concerts for young people with the UK-based Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa; this year, Apekisheva, Owen and Driver participate in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Poulenc’s Babar the Elephant (with the sonorous acting luminary Simon Callow as narrator). ‘Charles and I both feel it is essential to bring music to children in a fun and accessible way. And it’s so great to have Simon Callow on board with us to narrate these exciting stories,’ says Apekisheva. Another popular strand that returns for year two is the final jazz concert. Jazz legend Julian Joseph’s turn last year set the bar high. This year’s event features the highly talented Jason Rebello, who cites Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner as influences. LPF artistic directors Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen A classically-trained jazz pianist, Rebello has made a Composer Elena Langer is writing a new work inspired Simon Callow adds some star power name for himself in the pop by Petrov-Vodkin’s RedMare to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf world, touring with the likes of Sting and rock guitarist Jeff Beck. Apekisheva says: ‘Neither Charles nor I are jazz experts but we both love listening to it and want to include a jazz concert in each Festival. It was the fantastic Julian Joseph who highly recommended Jason Rebello to us. We have listened to and explored Jason’s work and we’ve been fascinated by his playing!’ e Visit www.londonpianofestival. com for this year’s complete programme.
View the Festival’s YouTube channel for a taster of what to ROBERT WORKMAN
© expect: youtu.be/O8UyidD7j34
July/August 2017 International Piano 35
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The traditional method of tuning a piano involves the tuner setting up beats then comparing and contrasting beat speeds In tune between the strings. This majestic skill has served tuners well for many years, and the beauty of hearing the strings of a piano being tuned by ear is a thing of joy. However, with the advances in digital with the times technology, sophisticated tuning software has recently become available. This gives the tuner a visual indication of the pitch of any string. The software can also calculate the inharmonicity (a Does the arrival of sophisticated gauge of the frequencies of overtones) of any given piano; and very importantly, it can calculate the stretch, or ‘overpull’ required piano-tuning software mean that to leave the string in tune after the bridge has adjusted to the increase in tension – a feat that tuners using their ears alone can traditional tuning by ear has only roughly estimate. The new software has not been welcomed with open arms by been superseded? Steve Droy all tuners. The Pianoforte Tuners’ Association (PTA) in the UK weighs up the pros and cons of does not allow the use of software in their competency test, unlike their cousins in the American and Australian PTG. The old guard two very different approaches to in the PTA is concerned about a perceived drop in standards, and many members refuse to familiarise themselves with commercially an age-old challenge available piano tuning software such as Reyburn Cyber Tuner, TuneLab and Sanderson Accu-Tuner. This is possibly due to the bad press that tuning software received when it first hit the streets in the 1970s. Publications such as Exchange and Mart offered basic CUSTOMER CALLED ME RECENTLY, BECAUSE SHE machines for sale, with the headlines, ‘You can tune your own was concerned that a young tuner I had sent was tuning the piano’ or ‘Earn extra money in your spare time’. This resulted in piano in a way that she had never seen before: ‘He didn’t some horror stories, with incompetent DIY tuners turning up and Astart in the middle like all the other tuners,’ she complained, ‘and wrecking customers’ prized instruments. he hit the keys very hard with a little tool in his hand. He was also looking at his phone the whole time and it Steve Droy: ‘There are no contradictions between traditional and hi-tech approaches to piano tuning’ looked like he had earphones in.’ I asked her if she was happy with the result. ‘Oh, it’s very good,’ she said. ‘The piano is sounding as nice as it ever has. That’s why I’m so confused.’ I reassured her that her visitor was a skilled and conscientious technician, and that what she had witnessed was a modern approach to tuning a piano. The tuner was using software, viewed on his smartphone, along with specialist filtering earplugs and a key pounder. He even had a space-age carbon fibre tuning lever. Tuners have been battling with pianos ever since their invention by Cristofori in 1700. As pianos evolved, the increases in string tension meant that a special technique had to be mastered to tune new iron-framed instruments. Whereas musicians once did their own tuning, the growing complexities of the pianoforte meant this was no longer possible – which in turn led to the rise of the professional tuner.
36 International Piano July/August 2017
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In truth there are no contradictions between traditional and hi- years to one. This system is known as the integrated approach, tech approaches: both have certain advantages and disadvantages. where trainees seamlessly learn traditional and software tuning In my opinion, it’s a no-brainer that a modern piano tuner should side by side from day one. be completely familiar with both methods of working. It could It is inevitable that the specific skills required for any profession even be argued that any tuner not able to use the software is doing will change over time. What pilot would refuse a navigation system, the customer a disservice. Tuning by ear is very effective when the or what doctor would pass on using X-rays? The fact is that modern piano is not far out of tune. There is an old tuners’ joke: ‘You can tuning software gives professional tuners additional information only tune a piano when it’s already in tune’. This means that if there which helps them to provide even better service. is any amount of stretching of the strings, the pitch of the note As long as students are given proper training in aural tuning you have just tuned will have gone flat a few minutes later, due to techniques, the judicious use of the new technology can only the reaction of the bridge. This note acts as the reference pitch for be advantageous. We don’t need a false dichotomy that says one tuning the next note, so any errors tend to be carried forward and method is good and the other bad, but rather an integration which the tuning becomes inaccurate. The new software has the ability respects the good points of two perfectly valid approaches to an to compensate for this effect and can stretch the note being tuned age-old challenge. exactly the right amount, so that when the bridge sinks the note e will end up in tune, not flat. Today’s customers do not have their Steve Droy is the owner and head technician of Islington pianos tuned as often as they did in the past, and most new clients Pianos, London contact tuners with tales of very out-of-tune instruments that have been neglected for years. Under these circumstances, the tuning Applications are now open for the Piano Technology School – a full-time, software is invaluable. 40-week intensive course in piano technology based at the Music & One area in which software has indisputable advantages is when Performing Arts Centre in Northampton, UK. For further details contact it comes to training tuners. The fact students can monitor the exact Steve Droy on +44 (0)7984 300009 or email [email protected] pitches they are tuning both visually and aurally has shortened the time needed to learn the skill of aural piano tuning from three www.pianotunernorthlondon.com
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July/August 2017 International Piano 37
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BIMY17_ad_210x276.inddIPJA17.indd 38 1 06/06/201708/03/2017 15:29:51 11:33 KEY NOTES KEY NOTES Historical perspectives on piano technique BY MURRAY MCLACHLAN SCALES OO MANY YOUNG PIANISTS There are many more benefits to be within the context of musical phrasing. regard scales merely as mechanical had from studying scales. What makes Nothing is more counter-productive than exercises designed exclusively for scales truly come alive as you practise is playing scales in Bach without allowing Texams: things of tedium and drudgery. stylistic awareness. Basing the study of space to breathe musically. Pounding out The attitude taken is that once Grade 8 is scales on repertoire leads to an awareness the notes at speed with no variation in out of the way, scales can be safely assigned that your playing should change from style articulation may be exciting in the short to history. This is a great pity, as scales are to style. Monochrome scale playing is just term (especially if strong fingerwork is unquestionably central to the foundation as counter-productive as monochrome employed), but quickly becomes tedious of most of the pianoforte literature. repertoire playing, and with this in mind, and predictable. In order to avoid this, While it would be foolhardy to dismiss let me take you on a whistle-stop tour of translate lighter lifted scale gestures in the importance of being able to execute all repertoire from the early 18th-century to your music as up-bows (which can be scale patterns in every key with precision, the present day to find some of the ways effectively realised pianistically as staccato even tone, velocity and effortless élan, in which scale playing can remain exciting or leggiero) and heavier, accented gestures putting a separate emphasis on scales and vibrant. By enhancing and developing as down bows (these can appear as short and pieces can be uninspiring. Long your overall technical approach to the groups of slurred notes): lists of scales as ‘homework’ can also be pieces that you are actually playing, scales dangerous, especially if there’s is no real may well become an essential part of daily Example 1 comes from the third movement musical explanation from the teacher as to practice well beyond your exam years… of Bach’s Concerto in D minor BWV 1052. why this work has been set. To avoid this, it The articulation inserted here is just one makes sense firstly to ensure that the keys possibility of many, but relates to the of scales set for preparation tallies with the N MANY BAROQUE PIECES, IT’S principle of bowing. When this is adopted, keys of repertoire being studied. This will essential to hear scale passages in the scale-based passage work becomes immediately help students, not only in terms of instrumentalists. When much more technically manageable, terms of ‘harmonic geography’ but also with Idealing, for example, with Bach’s Two- as well as musically meaningful. There fingering and general technical awareness. and Three-Part Inventions, an awareness are countless other similar examples in In the early stages of learning repertoire, of bowing techniques as employed by the Baroque literature, leading to the it makes sense for student and teacher to string players can truly lift the music off conclusion that scale passages in the pre- analyse the music being studied, the printed page. Indeed ‘bowing’ your Classical era are best realised in terms of
pinpointing all the passages that are scale runs means the ability to show small musical units rather than singular derived from scale patterns. accentuation, shape, structure and control legato gestures. Of course, there are pianists ⌂
Example 1 | Bach Concerto in D minor BWV 1052 . œ œ . 3 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . &b 4 œ ≈ œ œ. œ œn œ œ# œ# ŒŒ œ# œ# œ. œ R . œ. œ. œ . œ œ œ. . . œ œ œ œn œ œ# œ œn œ œ ? 3 œ ‰ Œ Œ ≈ œ œ œ œ ŒŒ b 4 œn œ œ œ { July/August 2017 International Piano 39
IPJA17_039-042_R_KeyNotes 0606KC.indd 39 07/06/2017 10:20 KEY NOTES
⌂ who attempt the latter, as though they are free pianism. Keep it on the keyboard hoping to emulate something of the even as much as possible. Do everything you Never approach legato associated with a certain style of can to relax your thumb joints. Eradicate Classical scales as organ playing; but these days, this tends to all heaviness in the thumbs and practise be the exception rather than the norm. passages by moving from one thumb note empty 'filling' in It almost goes without saying that a to the next, then stopping. If you can keep consistently martellato (or hammered) both thumbs on the keyboard at all times between melodies: approach to scales in Bach is not synchronisation in passages where both really artistically viable: while it may be hands are playing scales simultaneously in Mozart everything amusing and technically challenging to becomes much easier. play every note in a Baroque flourish in Problems relating to lack of co- is melody a detached manner, to do so exclusively ordination and uneven accentuation in is to divorce the music from singing and Classical scales can largely be blamed on breathing, and would be ill advised. One a lack of independence in the fingers, only need turn to C P E Bach’s ‘Essay combined with stiffness and excessive on the true art of playing keyboard movement: keep as close as possible to the instruments’ to find historical support keys and aim for a linear perspective, with for this, as Bach’s son constantly reiterates flourishes of notes rather than individual the need for players to emulate singing in ‘bites’ over every semiquaver. As in Baroque everything they do. repertoire, it can be beneficial to think in terms of bowing. Never approach Classical scales as empty ‘filling’ in between ANTABILE SCALES ARE ALSO melodies: in Mozart, everything is melody! impressionists. Indeed, one cannot imagine a prerequisite in works by Mozart’s scale passages provide a universe the music of Camille Saint-Saëns, nor the Clementi, Haydn and Mozart. of tonal contrasts too, though with more pianism of Isidor Philipp (1863-1958) and MozartC famously declared that emphasis on delicacy than in much of the Marguerite Long (1874-1966) without jeu passagework should ‘flow like oil’, and music that preceded and followed it. perlé. It is characterised by rapid flicking when dealing with his sonatas and The so-called ‘jeu perlé’ touch is especially finger movements, in extreme contrast to concertos it is essential to be in control appropriate for Mozart. Essentially jeu the stillness of all other anatomical parts of fingering, changes of position and co- perlé relies exclusively on the use of finger around them – in particular the hands ordination between the hands. movement, with a sense that the fingertips seem to remain remarkably motionless. In all scale playing it is vital to know are drawn back towards the palm of the Try it out on the following run from the where your thumbs need to be. In Mozart, hand. The musicologist Johann Forkel Primo part in Mozart’s Sonata in C major it can also be helpful to consider carefully has left us with a contemporary account for Piano Duet K19d (Example 2). whether the third or the fourth finger is of Bach’s keyboard playing that seems used: quite often I substitute ‘3’ instead of remarkably similar to this in approach, ‘4’ on black notes as a means of ensuring though it was ultimately developed and HOUGH THERE ARE MANY extra clarity and control. The thumb plays promoted strongly much later by Friedrich delicate passages in Beethoven’s a pivotal role in Classical scale-playing by Kalkbrenner (1785-1849). It is extremely oeuvre, much of his writing silently sliding up and down the keyboard, useful not only in Classical works, but also Tdemands strong use of the hands and ensuring effortless elegance and accent- in much of Chopin as well as in the French fingers at the keyboard. To approach the
Example 2 | Mozart Sonata in C major for Piano Duet K19d
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 4 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ & 4 Ó Ó 4 {& 4 œ ŒÓ œ Œ œ Œ 40 International Piano July/August 2017
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Example 3 | Busoni Nine Variations on a Chopin Prelude, Variation VI 3 2 3 4 5 1 2 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 b b b œ œ œn œ œn œn œ œ# œ œb œn & œ œ œn œ œ œ# œ œ œ# 1 1 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 5 4 3 2 5 5 4 3 2 1 {? b œb œn b b œ œ œ œn œ œn œn œ œ# œ œ œ# œ œ œn œ œ œ# 5 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 3 5 2 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 4 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 œn œ# œ œb œ œ# œ œb œ œn œb œn œn bb œn œb œn œn œ œ# œ œb œn œ R & b œb“”œn œb œn œn {? b œn œn œ# œ œb œ œn œn b & œ œb œ œn œb œn b 4 3 3 œb œn œ œn œ# R 5 2 1 5 4 2 1 œ œ# œ 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1
Emperor Concerto is to tackle a work that studies, many of which remain invaluable INALLY, ON THIS WHISTLE- is built out of an extraordinary number today for the cultivation of finger strength, stop tour of scales across the of scale passages, each one of which clarity, co-ordination and velocity in scale centuries, we should consider non- requires rock-solid technical control, playing. As with scales themselves they Flegato percussive articulation, apparent backed up with fingers that have a steel- can be practised in all kinds of ways, in works such as Bartók’s second and like intensity of purpose and approach. and act as a bridge between the classical Prokofiev’s third piano concertos. For This means that none of the finger joints scales of Beethoven and the brilliant runs this effect, it’s important to focus on should be allowed to collapse: keeping that saturate the works of Czerny’s most economical movements from below the control and power working from the famous student Franz Liszt. elbows. Flexibility and ease of forearm knuckles is vital for technical authority in It almost goes without saying that the movement are prerequisites if you want to repertoire which demanded much more remarkable sonic variety that is evident in despatch scale runs which are energised, finger strength and power than anything Liszt’s scales requires fingers that are fit for ‘hollow’ and rhythmically even. Keeping that preceded it in the literature. Sensible purpose. This can be achieved through a uniform dynamic level means acute self- scale practice for Beethoven involves some practising scales in small fragments – listening as you practise, so that the fingers finger movement: though lifting fingers provided they are are executed as fast as appear ‘equalised’. Lots of slow, critical in advance of playing is not an approach possible. Release notes in each micro- self-appraisal is necessary, along with a which should be adopted as a default musical unit as you practise, and avoid rhythmic discipline (practising with a setting (it encourages a percussive and unnecessary changes of position. metronome might assist). unrelaxed aesthetic) there is no doubt that In Liszt, Busoni and the Late Romantics The idea of ‘music as sport’ springs a controlled amount of scale practice with rapidity is often best achieved by ignoring to mind, since nurturing this variety of finger-lifts will do much to develop the all conventional fingerings and simply approaches to playing scales requires fingers. jumping from one hand position group discipline, perseverance and systematic Piano music from later in the 19th to the next, fingering chromatic scales 1-2- application. The most important thing to century has weightier textures and this 3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5 so as to avoid unnecessary remember, of course, is the quality of sound demands the use of arm and body weight, thumbing-under complications. This that is desired: if you manage to keep tone particularly when dealing with scale approach to fingering makes it possible to production your top priority when you passages in works such as Brahms’ Sonatas realise convincingly many of the ‘outsized’ practise scales, the process will remain and Alkan’s ferociously demanding scale runs that appear in works such as fascinating, focused and very worthwhile. studies. Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny has Liszt’s ‘La campanella’ and Busoni’s Nine Never lose sight of the fact that in every left us with literally dozens of scale-based Variations on a Chopin Prelude (Example 3). scale, music is always present! e July/August 2017 International Piano 41
IPJA17_039-042_R_KeyNotes 0606KC.indd 41 07/06/2017 10:20 The Christopher Norton Pacifi c Preludes Collection
A captivating collection of 14 new Pacifi c Preludes from the creator of Microjazz, inspired by traditional music from the shores of the word’s largest ocean.
Explore the rich and varied musical landscape of the Pacifi c Rim as each Prelude weaves together native themes from countries including Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Japan, Peru, New Zealand and the United States of America with Christopher Norton’s characteristically innovative popular music styles.
Ideal for intermediate to advanced-level keyboard players, these pieces are perfect for the concert platform, as well as providing excellent teaching material.
An accompanying CD puts each Prelude on the map with stylish demonstration BH 13100 · Edition with CD · £ 10.99 performances by Iain Farrington
One of the preludes from this book, the Colombian Parranda Campesina, is presented in the Sheet Music section of this month’s issue of International Piano www.boosey.com
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IPJA17.indd 42 06/06/2017 15:29:52 international SHEET MUSIC
‘Parranda Campesina’ from The Christopher Norton Pacific Preludes Collection (Boosey & Hawkes) About the music
hristopher Norton’s award-winning publications feature traditions with Latin- original compositions as well as arrangements in a American styles, such as salsa broad range of popular styles. His collections of Preludes and rumba. Christopher has forC piano – Rock Preludes, Latin Preludes, Country Preludes, Jazz based his arrangement on a Preludes and Eastern Preludes – are designed for intermediate recording by the band Son to advanced level players. Many of these original compositions de Pueblo, which features are performed regularly at festivals and competitions, as well as instruments that originate being popular choices for examination candidates. from the Andes – the Christopher’s latest volume, The Christopher Norton Pacific zampoña (a type of panpipe), Preludes Collection, like his Eastern Preludes Collection, was the quena (a wooden flute) inspired by his travels and experiences of local musical traditions. and the charango (a lute He has re-interpreted traditional songs from his own birthplace, traditionally made with an New Zealand, as well as pieces from the Pacific coastlines of armadillo shell) – as well as South and Central America, Australia, the Philippines, China, the requinto (a small guitar Vietnam and Russia. from Mexico). This joyful music demands the ability to play The collection of 14 preludes features a wide range of styles syncopated rhythms securely and display mild virtuosity. – from soothing lullabies and love songs (Anching from The The book is packaged with an accompanying CD featuring Philippines and Cielito Lindo from Mexico) to native dances (El stylish demonstration performances of each Prelude by Iain Guapango Chorotega from Honduras and La Trastrasera from Farrington. Chile). Christopher has woven together these native themes with his own characteristic popular music styles. The Christopher Norton Pacific Preludes Collection (ISMN Parranda Campesina (Peasant Parade) is an example of the 9790060131004) is now available from Boosey & Hawkes . vibrant music of Colombia, known for fusing Afro-Latin music www.boosey.com
IPJA17_043_R_SMusicIntro 0606KC.indd 43 07/06/2017 10:18 IPJA17_044-047_R_SheetMusic.indd 44 07/06/2017 10:18 IPJA17_044-047_R_SheetMusic.indd 45 07/06/2017 10:18 IPJA17_044-047_R_SheetMusic.indd 46 07/06/2017 10:18 IPJA17_044-047_R_SheetMusic.indd 47 07/06/2017 10:18 COMPETITIONS
Meanwhile, in the quarter-finals of the XVII Cliburn in Fort Worth (in progress as I write this), there were arguments about which 12 of the 20 pianists who survived the first two rounds deserved to make it to the semi-finals. BEYOND The absence of such ambiguity – at least initially – is what made the finals of the Concours musical international de Montréal (held in May) so different. It was easy to decide which three finalists deserved one of the three top prizes and which didn’t. LOGIC The Hungarian Zoltán Fejérvári (first prize) and the Italians Giuseppe Guarrera (second) and Stefano Andreatta (third) all gave Awarding any prize is rarely a first-rate, professional performances of their chosen concertos; Jinhyung Park, Sejin Noh and Albert Cano Smit, on this occasion, matter of straightforward did not. Still, the jury’s decision to award first prize to the 30-year-old reasoning on the part of the jury. Fejérvári and second to the 25-year -old Guarrera leaves plenty of room for ambiguity. How does one contestant win most of the Stephen Wigler ponders the prizes but lose the gold medal? And how much weight do you give one great performance of a single concerto when it may have been mysteries behind this year’s close somewhat simpler to play than the others? First a disclaimer: I did not attend any of the earlier rounds and call at the Montreal International therefore didn’t hear any of the six finalists perform a solo recital. Piano Competition I heard only the concerto performances. Nevertheless, in almost every competition – no matter how well one of the finalists played preceding rounds – it’s always the final round that’s decisive. The HERE ARE SO MANY SPLENDID YOUNG PIANISTS pianist who gives the most successful performance – in the jury’s nowadays that it must be difficult even for knowledgeable opinion – of a concerto almost invariably wins first prize. juries to decide who deserves a competition’s top prizes and I agree with the way the jury ranked these concerto performances. Twho doesn’t. Two years ago, for example, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Guarrera’s excellent second-prize winning Tchaikovsky First Competition was so tightly contested that the six finalists had Concerto (elegant and exciting) was somewhat superior to to share the four top prizes – nobody was placed fifth or sixth. Andreatta’s merely good third-prize winning Liszt Second Concerto
Winner Zoltán Fejérvári performs Bartók with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal © BRENT CALIS
48 International Piano July/August 2017
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It's always the final round that's decisive
Finalists (l-r) Stefano Andreatta, Zoltán Fejérvári and Giuseppe Guarrera
(less elegant, but as exciting). I would also agree that Fejérvári’s and Andreatta’s good Liszt. In a contest between a rarely heard great Bartók Third Concerto was easily the best and most piece and a routinely heard great one – all things being otherwise enjoyable performance of the finals. In fact, I think I enjoyed equal – the infrequently heard piece will almost surely sound better. Fejérvári’s performance with the Orchestre symphonique Here’s something else to consider: both the Tchaikovsky and de Montréal and conductor Claus Peter Flor almost as the Liszt require high levels of virtuosity. For that matter, so do much as the one I heard Géza Anda give in the early the Bartók First and Second concertos. His Third, however, is a 1960s with the New York Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein, different kind of piece. Bartók himself was a great pianist who gave or that given by Zoltán Kocsis in the mid-1990s with the the premieres of both earlier pieces. But he wrote the Third in 1945, Baltimore Symphony and David Zinman. Like those of his great, when he was a dying man, as a surprise birthday present for his wife late countrymen, Fejérvári performed the piece with sweep and Ditta, who was also a concert pianist. It was also a legacy of sorts: discernment and made the concerto’s bird-like song and nocturnal after several years of impoverished life in New York City, he had atmosphere – particularly in the slow second movement – little else to leave her. That’s probably why it’s not written in the tremendously affecting. incisive and explosive style that suited his own virtuosic hands, but Because Bartók’s music is so close to the Hungarian folk in a serene, more lyrical and somewhat technically less challenging melodies he studied and carefully catalogued, perhaps it’s the case manner that was suitable for Ditta. that Hungarians play it best. Certainly, all three of these Hungarian Fejérvári’s win also needs to be considered in light of the fact that pianists were able to summon up colours that sometimes made the several other prizes (besides first, second and third) are awarded piano sound like a cimbalom. at the Montreal Competition. Except for the Best Canadian Artist prize, which went to the only Canadian semi-finalist, Teo Gheorgiu, all these other awards – audience favourite, best solo recital in the OW THE DETAILS START GETTING MORE semi-finals, best performance of a work by Bach, best performance complicated. I have been attending concerts by pianists for of a work by Chopin, and best performance of the compulsory more than 50 years and writing about them professionally Canadian work – were won by Guarrera. forN almost 40, but I can only remember one other time that I’ve The Montreal Competition was an interesting event, but perhaps heard the Bartók Third in the concert hall. I can’t even begin to the most fascinating things about it were its mysteries. First prize count the numerous times I have heard performances of the other was indeed justly awarded to the pianist whose performance in the ©
BRENT CALIS concertos given in Montreal: Brahms’ First and Rachmaninov’s finals was the best. But why was the musician who was judged the Second, as well as Tchaikovsky’s First and Liszt’s Second. best pianist in the greatest part of the repertory throughout the So it’s not surprising that Fejérvári’s Bartók Third sounded fresher to competition not awarded first prize? Did Fejérvári win first prize, me, and presumably to the jurors, than Guarrera’s superb Tchaikovsky or was it Bartók who beat Tchaikovsky and Liszt? e July/August 2017 International Piano 49
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congruence of musical thought which which he put Jean-Selim Abdelmoula UK counted. No problems differentiating Bach through his paces with In the Mists, and LONDON from Bartók – though, as he played them, Julia Hamos through hers with the Milton Court Jonathan Biss 27 March they almost felt cognate. Not everyone, Schumann Fantasie. And now he was off his Wigmore Hall Steven Osborne 22 March; though, could distinguish between a pedestal, with no three-piece suit or András Schiff 2 May Bulgarian dance and a movement of the watch-chain, and he had a quizzically Royal Festival Hall Yuja Wang 11 April Sonata as he segued them together. encouraging manner. To tell the truth, I St James’s Piccadilly Aizhana Nurkenova 31 March First he played that strange piece of found Abdelmoula’s interpretation more programme-music which Bach wrote in his poetic than Schiff’s, and there were I have always admired András Schiff. One teens: Capriccio on the Departure of his Most moments when he tried to extract an may quarrel at times with his Beethoven, but Beloved Brother. Then came the melange. interpretation which was less convincing it has monumentality, and it reflects a highly The Bartók pieces were played with all that this excellent young Swiss player’s individual vision, while his Goldberg Schiff’s usual fire, and the Bach ‘Duetti’ – original. But with illuminating asides, the Variations are beyond compare. However, I boldly experimental works which are occasional timeless pearl, and a close-up feel a growing resistance to the persona he seldom programmed – seemed, thanks to study of this work’s beauties, Schiff gave his affects when giving a recital. Schiff is only Schiff’s artful voicing, to contain many money’s worth. It made perfect sense to 63, in the vigorous prime of middle age, yet more voices than their actual two. The liken one of Janáček’s runs of furiously he comes over like an ancient patrician in second half of his recital consisted of squashed notes to broken glass being his three-piece suit plus gold fob watch Janáček’s In the Mists, followed by brushed away; it was refreshing to register (calling for a paunch which he doesn’t yet Schumann’s Fantasie in C, Op 17. In the Schiff’s disdain for the current fashion for have); his faltering voice seems to come from Mists has long been part of Schiff’s playing all the notes in a big two-hand far away in time. Introducing the last in his armoury, but on this occasion he attacked it chord cleanly together, rather than series of Bach-and-Bartók recitals, he had a with such heavy didacticism that its poetry expressively just out of sync. About this he little patrician fun with us. The programme and mystery were all but rubbed out. was emphatic: ‘Follow your feeling, don’t had promised Bartók’s Six Dances in Meanwhile the Schumann came devoid of worry about together!’ Bulgarian Rhythm and his Piano Sonata, with the warmly pulsating passion – and the Schiff’s sartorial preoccupations are as Bach’s ‘Four Duetti’ from Clavier-Übung sheer seductiveness – which ought to infuse nothing compared to those of Yuja Wang, Book III coming in between; but he’d it: his approach to this quintessentially who displayed herself in two diaphanous shuffled the cards in a more complicated Romantic work was Classical through ball-dresses for her latest International Piano way, and said that if we weren’t absolutely and through. Series recital. Her elfin persona charmingly sure what we were listening to at any given On the following night we got Schiff in disguises the fact that she’s recently reached moment, it shouldn’t matter – it was the didactic mode for real, with a masterclass in 30: her playing must now be judged by
András Schiff: ‘Follow your feeling’
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grown-up standards. The work she had written as madness crept up on him, and new generation of talented young pianists: originally been billed to play – Beethoven’s Biss evoked its desperately bleak sound- Tristan Pfaff, Cédric Pescia and Ivan Ilić. Hammerklavier – would have been a supreme world with haunting eloquence. A selection French pianist Tristan Pfaff opted to test; but the programme she chose, starting of miniatures from Kurtág’s Játékok was stay very much on home turf with a with Chopin’s Préludes, was challenge rendered with velvet touch and singing French-themed programme. Pfaff most enough. The first piece emerged as a pedal. Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie – which recently brought out a disc of Piano Encores sonorous murmur, the second was lyrical really does seem to be asking ‘what kind of on the Aparté label. His combination of a and sorrowing, the third had bright clarity, piece am I?’ – was followed by 10 of questing attitude to repertoire and his the fourth an honest plainness, and the fifth Brahms’s late masterpieces, the Op 118 and innate musicality is delicious. He was a muted whirligig. Her touch had silky 119 Klavierstücke. Biss’s readings were often appreciates the structure of Debussy’s smoothness, the pieces were exquisitely unorthodox, but they carried convincing music as well as it sonic beauty (his La plus shaped, and some were deftly dramatised authority. This pianist loves to provoke, but que lent was a case in point). Pfaff’s Poulenc – most beautifully in the case of the he’s a true keyboard poet. Improvisation No 15, ‘Hommage à Edith ‘Raindrop’, and the suavely tranquil No 17, As is Steven Osborne, in whose Piaf’, was beautifully voiced before he where her pianissimo evocation of a distant Wigmore recital Beethoven’s last three caught the bitter-sweet quality of ‘Les bell plus chanting choir offered a moment sonatas were interspersed with the first Chemins d’amour’ to perfection. A pity of ravishment. The virtuosic pieces were fast three of Brahms’s Op 117 Intermezzi. This Moszkowski’s version of Offenbach’s and flawless. Yes, I very much liked it – for idea worked beautifully: the urgency with famous Barcarolle was not the most inspired a while. which he delivered the Brahms pieces transcription (it was rightly demoted from Gradually, however, I realised there was a allowed them to serve the sonatas, rather its original final place in the recital); and hole where this work’s heart should have than upstaging them, with all three while Pfaff did his best with it, it was in the been: Wang seemed completely untouched emerging on a grander scale than usual. At Weissenberg arrangement of En Avril à by the emotions lurking in the score. Like times Osborne took risks – as in the crazy Paris, with its nods to Satie, and the Prospero’s tempest, each storm vanished speed of his scherzo in Op 110 – but these beautifully elucidated drama of the leaving no trace on the water’s still surface. risks paid off, as did his decision to milk the Massenet/Saint-Saëns Concert Paraphrase on This was Chopin with smoke and mirrors, variations of Op 109 for drama. The great ‘La mort de Thaïs’ that Pfaff really impressed. not flesh and blood. repeated chords of Op 110 came like a A bouquet of Liszt provided the climax of In the second half came Brahms’s sunrise before the delicate carillon of the the recital. The devilish Valse-Impromptu Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, fugue; the triumphal intensity of the was arguably even finer than his recording, and again her virtuosity dazzled. But by conclusion had pulverising fortissimo force. while the live setting added buzz to Liszt’s taking this epic work at the speed she did, Finally, a warm welcome for the young Rakoczky March in the rather silly, but she lost all the things which make it so Kazakh pianist and composer Aizhana undeniably fun, Horowitz arrangement. A special: the harmonic grandeur, the Nurkenova. Two years ago she released a nice idea to have Elgar’s Salut d’amour as majestic muscularity, and that intensely first-rate CD of Bach’s English Suites. Now encore, marrying France with England. sweet pathos which is Brahms’s inimitable she was performing to raise money for the By far the most exciting recital of the day voice. For her encores she returned to her care of children with special needs, in the was French-Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia’s home turf: dazzling with Prokofiev, less than ideal acoustic of St James’s Beethoven meets Cage. Pescia’s discography is beguiling with Schubert-Liszt and Piccadilly. She opened in fine style, with a wide, from Busoni to Bach and Couperin to Rachmaninov, perfuming the atmosphere vibrant account of Bach’s Partita No 2 in Cage. The event was preceded by a with Scriabin, and getting the usual which the orchestral textures were well ‘Conversation on Prepared Piano’: joining standing ovation. brought out, and for the same composer’s forces with Steinway technician Ulrich Is there such a thing as ‘late style’? Toccata in D minor she used a vivid palette. Gerhartz, the whole concept of preparing a Increasing numbers of musicians seem to The rest of her programme, including a piano and how to do it (and how not to do think so, employing a phrase which was brightly coloured extravaganza of her own, it) was explained. It was, though, the originally coined by the German Marxist was relentlessly declamatory – every fascination of the music that gripped. In philosopher Theodor Adorno as a label for programme needs its light and shade, its terms of the pairing, both Cage and his wrong-headed view of Beethoven. Last moments of up-and down-time. I look Beethoven helped develop the piano into a year Schiff took up the theme, juxtaposing forward to hearing her in a decent acoustic. different instrument through their the late sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, MICHAEL CHURCH demands: both had a sense of humour in Beethoven and Schubert. Meanwhile the their music. Two pianos were used, a American pianist Jonathan Biss has just ALL ABOUT PIANO! ‘normal’ one and an an ex-Usher Hall Institut français Tristan Pfaff 31 March; concluded a marathon series of recitals in Cédric Pescia 1 April; Ivan Ilic´ 2 April Steinway only used for ‘prepared’ works. which he and some like-minded colleagues Cage’s In a Landscape, Satie-esque in its juxtaposed the music of a variegated clutch All About Piano! is a festival that does insistence on repeated motifa, harmonically of composers including Schumann, exactly what its name implies, celebrating floating, set the tone. Pithy Bagatelles from Chopin, Brahms and Kurtág at Kings Place. ‘all forms of piano’ from jazz improvisation Beethoven’s Op 119 seemed not a million He didn’t force any generalisations: all he (Yaron Herman) to an art exhibition and miles away from Cage’s Sonatas and said was that at a late stage in each of these the opportunity to try free tuition. Central Interludes. Alternating the two composers composers’ lives, ‘something caused them to to the programming, though, are the was a master-stroke: one noticed the
completely change their style’. recitals. This year’s stars included Melvyn concentration of language of each all the Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe was Tan and Barry Douglas, together with a more. Pescia’s Cage is fabulous (listen to his ⌂
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Kazakh pianist and composer Aizhana Nurkenova
Cédric Pescia highlights the humour in music by Beethoven and Cage ⌂ © UWE NEUMANN
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Incredible panache: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet in Monte Carlo
⌂ Sonatas & Interludes, on the Aeon label). The to encounter both new artists and new with works from the 20th and 21st music danced; the excerpts from the Suite for repertoire. I will be watching these three centuries. Piano music is a key strand of the Toy Piano (the third ‘piano’ present) were young pianists with interest. Festival, which this year featured four piano delightful. If the Beethoven Sonata Op 111 COLIN CLARKE concerts over the course of a weekend – felt a little ambitious technically, its lead-in including four concertos with four to 4’33” was genius. The score opened, a different soloists on a single evening. mobile phone timing the performance, MONACO Monte-Carlo’s Opéra Garnier is an almost perhaps the invitation here was to analyse ideal venue for piano recitals. The opulent our internal reactions to the Beethoven. MONTE CARLO 524-seat auditorium within the city’s famous Ivan Ilić’s script was very different: his FESTIVAL PRINTEMPS DES ARTS casino boasts a fabulous acoustic and intimate recital was entitled Reicha Rediscovered and DE MONTE-CARLO ambience, qualities that were used to great Opéra Garnier Ivo Kahánek, Jean-Efflam featured a sheaf of UK premieres in a preview Bavouzet 24 March effect in the weekend’s opening concert by of his forthcoming disc – part of his recent Auditorium Rainier III Jan Michiels, Ivo Ivo Kahánek and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. signing to Chandos. Ilić’s enthusiasm for Kahánek, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Bruno The Czech-born Kahánek excels in the music Reicha is understandable, yet bigging up Leonardo Gelber 25 March of his homeland and gave a fabulous Yacht Club de Monaco Bruno Leonardo Reicha too much can raise audience rendition of Janáček’s Sonata 1.X.1905 ‘From Gelber 26 March expectation sky high – perhaps beyond what the Street’, full of drama and pathos, followed the music can deliver. The excerpts from The Festival Printemps des Arts has by a vigorous trio of rhythmic dances by Praktische Beispiele were quirky and everything going for it: a stunning Martinů. His Chopin playing was also experimental: the ‘Fantasie sur un seul accord’ Mediterranean setting, strong support for impressive: No 1 Op 20 started a little too fast works with, as its title implies, limited arts and culture from the principality’s but after settling down Kahánek found the material; the Capriccio is an enigmatic jigsaw constitutional monarchy and a well-heeled poetry, lyricism and tranquility at its heart, of a piece. The final Grande Sonate in C is a audience which turns out in droves to returning to boiling point for an exciting big-boned, sometimes Beethovenian piece, attend the packed three-week event each coda; No 2 Op 31 offered a display of occasionally sounding like an orchestral spring. Since 2003, the Festival has been led thrilling tonal clarity that captured the reduction. Reicha encores were apt; a by the quirky French composer Marc music’s qualities of heroism and prayer-like
supporting performance by George Todica of Monnet, whose personal blend of intimacy; No 4 Op 54 demonstrated his Enescu provided good balance. seriousness and playfulness is reflected in command of textures and voicing, with some ⌂ The festival offered terrific opportunities programmes that juxtapose core repertoire glittering passage-work in the upper register
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⌂ nicely constrasted with the music’s Hungarian conductor Gábor Takács- being described as ‘a music of small melancholy second theme. Only Kahánek’s Nagy has recorded extensively with revelations rather than larger gestures’. It dour stage manner left something to be Bavouzet for Chandos, and these long-time wears its depth lightly, but it is deep desired, though his concentration and collaborators gave us a Mozart Concerto nonetheless. I always come away from commitment were compelling. K459 of great integrity. The orchestra was Wallumrǿd’s performances feeling there is a Bavouzet’s performance in the second half evidently more energised under Takács- lot to be said, and much still to be of this recital was an altogether different Nagy, who seemed to be coaxing sound understood and reflected on. Certainly affair. The debonair Frenchman oozed from the musicians rather than directing there is an exploration of what improviser enjoyment from the moment he stepped them. Balance between the ensemble and Derek Bailey called the ‘instrumental onstage, and this spirit was quick to infect the soloist was also exemplary. Indeed, it turned impulse, essential to improvisation’ – audience. His Beethoven Sonata Op 10/2 felt out to be the highpoint of the evening, though jazz connections now seem distant. fresh and exciting, illuminating every followed by a disappointing Emperor Wallumrǿd’s ensemble recorded five moment of the score with subtle Concerto in the hands of the fourth soloist, albums for the ECM label between 2001 and interpretative insights. Even the finale, which Bruno Leonardo Gelber. Doubtless this 2012. He now records for Hubro, and he took at quite a lick, was intensely musical: 75-year-old virtuoso was once a force to be recently released the solo Pianokammer, and his apparent ease even in the most technically reckoned with – he made his debut in the electronics and percussion duo LP difficult passages makes Bavouzet’s Beethoven Schumann’s Concerto aged 15 with Lorin Brutter. These recordings, and those as sound newly minted, almost improvisatory. Maazel and recorded over a dozen discs for sideman or collaborator, show an amazing The same could be said of his Douze notations EMI – but his playing now offers only rare eclecticism – a remarkable ability to by Pierre Boulez, which he sensibly glimpses of brilliance. Phrasing and convince across varied genres. Wallumrǿd performed from the score. These highly coordination between the soloist and has a background in jazz and church music, compressed miniatures offer a kaleidoscope orchestra was haphazard, and Gelber’s one that runs from early polyphony to Cage of moods, colours and textures that Bavouzet harsh tone and approximate approach to and techno; but he now seems to favour a delivered with incredible panache. From the notes rendered even this bullet-proof rigorous and austere aesthetic, that requires funky, jazzy rhythms to spare floating masterpiece boring. Gelber (a Monaco intensely meditative listening. He has a textures, dramatic flourishes of cluster chords resident and local celebrity) gave the command of different musical registers – and flamboyant glissandi, Bavouzet took it all Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas a both in the sense of accent, tone and gesture, in his stride – a truly brilliant performance. similar treatment the following day, in a as well as pitch and dynamics – that he By contrast, his ‘Night Music’ from Bartók’s private recital at the Yacht Club attended by focuses gently into a totally individual style. Out of Doors was delivered too nonchalantly Monaco’s reigning monarch Albert II. No one could mistake Christian and lacked a sense of mystery. He concluded OWEN MORTIMER e Wallumrǿd for an artist in any mainstream with Ravel’s Miroirs, his ‘Oiseaux tristes’ – though neither is his music inaccessible. suitably eerie, ‘Un barque sur l’océan’ flowing Enrico Pieranunzi is a different matter. At like quicksilver, and an ‘Alborada del gracioso’ ITALY Bergamo we were privileged to hear Enrico that offered an incredible range of sonorities Pieranunzi & The Brussels Jazz Orchestra, and ended in a blaze of colour. His encore – a BERGAMO featuring Bert Joris, performing the pianist’s moto perpetuo by Gabriel Pierné – even left BERGAMO JAZZ FESTIVAL music, with Pieranunzi and Joris on Ravel in the shade. Auditorium di Piazza Libertà Christian trumpet as main soloists. Wallumrø´d 25 March Kahánek and Bavouzet returned the next Teatro Donizetti Enrico Pieranunzi 26 I would compare Pieranunzi with Alan evening as two of the soloists in the March Broadbent: a musician influenced by four-concerto marathon at Monaco’s Lennie Tristano – though unlike Broadbent, Auditorium Rainier III. Flemish pianist Jan Two concerts at this year’s Bergamo Jazz he was not a student – whose lyricism can Michiels kicked off with Ligeti’s Concerto Festival placed the piano metaphorically, if be misunderstood and even under- (1988) in a performance that clearly not literally, centre-stage. An early evening appreciated. Their talents are too often stretched the capacity of the Orchestre concert at Auditorium di Piazza Libertà on mistaken as belonging to a jazz mainstream Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and 25 March, featuring Christian Wallumrǿd, – which fails to recognise the tensile conductor Jean Deroyer. The result was a was my Festival highlight. With the strength and compositional rigour that scramble, with too much effort going into Norwegian pianist and harmonium-player underlies their work. (There are parallels execution and coordination, leaving little were Eivind Lønning (trumpet), Espen also with Bill Evans, at least before his room for interpretation. It was a lacklustre Reinertsen (tenor saxophone), Katrine increasing and justified critical deification.) affair compared with Bavouzet’s Boulez the Schiøtt (cello) and Per Oddvar Johansen Compositions performed at Bergamo previous night. Kahánek then gave us (drums, vibraphone). The set began with a included ‘Fellini’s Waltz’ and ‘With My Martinů’s Concerto No 4 (Incantation), a long, continuous performance, followed by Heart in a Song’. It was good to experience highly charged piece tinged with folkloric shorter ones – a patient exploration of a new take on these beautiful pieces, influences that straddles the divide between sound and silence, timbre and tonality, to performed by the excellent musicians of the modernism and Late Romanticism. haunting and magical effect. There is much Brussels orchestra. Even so, listening again Kahánek’s committed interpretation doubling of instruments and contrasts in to the master’s sublime albums, Parisian gathered together this music’s various sound production. Portraits and Con Infinite Voce, reminds me stylistic strands in a coherent and The pianist is also a member of the of the truest source: Pieranunzi’s own solo compelling narrative, while Deroyer drew excellent quartet Dans Les Arbres, and there piano-playing. vivid colours from the orchestra. is an overlap in methodology. I recall this ANDY HAMILTON
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CULTURAL PEARL
Having established its economic supremacy in the Middle East, Abu Dhabi is today leading the way in promoting international cultural ties between the United Arab Emirates and the rest of the world, thanks to its flourishing international arts festival – the largest celebration of culture in the Arabian Gulf. Robert Turnbull reports from the 2017 event
CENTURY AGO, ABU DHABI WAS FAMOUS FOR JUST Dhabi, designed by ‘starchitect’ Jean Nouvel. For NYU Abu Dhabi, one thing: pearls. The fishermen of the Persian Gulf would the designer was Rafael Viñoly, who aimed to match something dive for up to 16 hours a day with no oxygen tanks while of the environment of NYU’s Greenwich Village with that of Atraders with fistfuls of Indian Rupees waited on the pier under the traditional Islamic villages. burning sun. That was until the Japanese invented cultured pearls NYU Abu Dhabi’s theatre complex soon became the principle and the industry collapsed, along with centuries-old traditions. venue another of Abu Dhabi’s major cultural assets: the Abu Dhabi Then they discovered oil. From the 1960s onwards the labourers Festival, created by the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation came from India and Bangladesh, imported in their thousands to (ADMAF) and patronised by His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan build what was to be the jewel in the crown of the Gulf States, Mabarak Al Nahyan. the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Abu Dhabi, the largest of these The Festival is currently the largest celebration of arts and culture seven Emirates, was declared their capital city. Sports stadiums and in the Arabian Gulf, boasting over 100 events annually. Taking eight-star hotels sprouted, cheek by jowl with five-lane highways place across the sprawling capital and Abu Dhabi as a whole, the and shopping malls. The Emirati tourist industry boomed and the event bears witness, not unlike the old trade routes, to the coming international media exalted in the nation’s newfound prosperity together of goods and services, of minds and methodologies. Today and modernity. oud players from Lebanon accompany tarab dancers and encounter Culture and education took longer to emerge – at least officially. visiting Chinese acrobats en route to Europe. In 2008, New York University opened a 40-acre campus on Saadiyat Ask the Festival’s artistic director Her Excellency Hoda Al
Island, within a part of the city that has spawned new branches Khamis Kanoo, and she will stress that links between Arab states of established international museums, including the Louvre Abu and the rest of the world flourished for many years, so it seems ⌂
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⌂ only natural to build on them. However, it’s just as obvious that the country has decided to follow something close to a Singaporean strategy of development. Just as with the Southeast Asian economic powerhouse, UAE has little tangible cultural heritage and a questionable record on human rights, owing to its lack of Western-
style democracy, and more notoriously, the presence of a vast and 2017 ABU DHABI FESTIVAL rootless immigrant population serving a much smaller privileged © indigenous community. Like Singapore, UAE uses considerable resources to embrace the arts, which in turn attract foreign investment and tourism. The arts, of course, make for good PR; cynics might say they also succeed in diverting attention. Like Singapore, Abu Dhabi has invested its new-found wealth in its own prodigious development. As a result, the arts have been ennobled by a lively mixture of public and private money. Artists from poor, often war-torn regions around the Middle East flock to the relative security of the UAE with its comparatively liberal attitudes and promotion of religious tolerance. Through a variety of methods, the Foundation has supported these artists’ professional development, while encouraging the growth of arts patronage in the region.
Energy and poise: Juan Pérez Floristán HE ABU DHABI FESTIVAL ALSO HAS A STRONG focus on Europe and, for its 2017 edition, it invited the Lebanese-American pianist Tarek Yamani leads the world premiere of Peninsula up-and-coming Spanish pianist Juan Pérez Floristán to Tgive a major recital. A former student at the Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid, Floristán won the highly prestigious Santander International Piano Competition in 2012, the first of his countrymen to do so in 25 years. This was significant: the Academy was created by pianist Paloma O’Shea in 1991 largely to raise the profile of Spanish pianism after few Spaniards were winning the competition she founded. Floristán exudes the confidence you might expect from someone who is now working with major European orchestras. He describes the ‘competition route’ to fame as desirable but ‘unfortunately only one of many things you have to do… In the old days, you would win competitions once you had already embarked on a career, so the prize was a kind of acknowledgement. Now they award them to 16-year-olds who haven’t been out with girls or got drunk with their friends – and it can ruin their careers as they have no experience.’ Floristán is very much an internationalist, refusing to accept there is such a thing as a ‘Spanish School’ of playing. He’s not especially interested in promoting Spanish music. One reason he relishes his family’s name is because of its association with Robert Schumann, Florestan and Eusebius being the names the German composer gave to the extrovert and introvert sides of his nature. So which is he? ‘Both actually’, says Floristán. ‘I’m hoping I’m not as crazy as Schumann, who started hearing voices in his head. My friends would say I’m the outgoing Florestan, but I also like being alone and solitary.’ In recital, Floristán appears to balance both temperaments, at least when he plays Chopin’s Sonata in B-flat minor. His first attempt at the piece for a live audience left you wanting for nothing – an interpretation full of both grandeur and intimacy, energy and poise, using a rich palette of colours and thoughtful phrasing. The ABU DHABI FESTIVAL 2017 ABU DHABI FESTIVAL
legato lines of the slow movement were mournful and finely spun, ©
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before a weirdly sombre Funeral March led effortlessly into a rapt correlation with African-American jazz, all of which was collected other-worldly finale. into a recently published book. Yamani believes that the style we His playing of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was call khalaji, has emerged over time from the trade routes, as tribes fantastically evocative, so that the promenade round a gallery of moved east from Africa and west from the Indian subcontinent. paintings (by the composer’s friend Victor Hartmann) seemed more The Arabian element he puts down to something as simple as the like a series of windows into everyday 19th-century European life. swaying of your body when riding a camel. Rhythms in humans Floristán created a series of vivid and enthralling scenes, from the are carried genetically. haunting meandering tune of the ‘Old Castle’ and the grotesquerie The concert also showed Yamani’s considerable technique of Baba Yaga’s hut on chicken’s legs, to the final crashing bells of and the ease at which he switches from an electronic keyboard the ‘Gates of Kiev’. to an acoustic piano. Pungent jazz chords that recall Thelonious Monk and the improvised style of Chick Corea alternate with counterpoint reminiscent of Bach, a composer whom Yamani, HE OTHER PIANIST TO APPEAR AT THE FESTIVAL IN like most jazz pianists, worships. Each of the nine songs had a March held the audience spellbound with a sophisticated different character and mood, and shed fresh light on the music of fusion of local rhythms, lyrics, melodies, modes and Yamani’s homeland. The opening, ‘Hala Sound’, began with a foot- Tcontemporary Western jazz. tapping simple chordal riff based on an Arab melody, progressively In 2016, the Lebanese-American Tarek Yamani was commissioned becoming more free and dissonant. Yamani loves to show off his by the Foundation to write a new work based on the rhythms of technique with fast octaves and some restless trilling up and down the Arabian Gulf. For the world premiere of Peninsular, Tarek the length of the piano. Ensemble was well-balanced throughout, augmented a conventional trio of piano, bass and drums with a Elie Afif establishing the steady bass lines underpinning Yamani’s percussion group of hand-held drums, and later Yemeni singers restless pianism. performing his own setting of a Yemeni poem. e Yamani has spent the last few years researching 35 core rhythms www.abudhabifestival.ae of the Gulf region, many originating from Africa and finding their www.admaf.org
21 July – 6 August 2017
July/August 017 International Piano 59
IPJA17_057-059_FFocus 0706OM.indd 59 07/06/2017 12:33 The essential guide for professional and aspiring musicians Musicians’ Handbook » Available in both print and digital formats » 118 pages of tips, advice and listings for singers, instrumentalists, conductors, composers and more! » Includes invaluable articles FROM on succeeding in the music £7.95 industry, from preparing for auditions to securing a record deal
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MUSHDBK17_210x276.inddIPJA17.indd 60 1 25/01/201706/06/2017 14:17:3215:30:07 REPERTOIRE GUIDE REPERTOIRE GUIDE Piano Sonata No 29 in B-flat major, Op 106 (‘Hammerklavier’) BY LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
For many pianists, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier is the Everest of piano sonatas – a pinnacle of achievement that stands out from the musical canon as a whole. Jonathon Brown explores this deeply personal statement that embraces the infinite, universal and spiritual dimensions of the composer’s art
Pianists panic at the prospect of it all; record collectors panic too. One theory is that the second note [dum] is for the right hand, not the left, with time therefore to move in place for the next up in the treble [da]. This is less scary for the player and so, for instance, Charles Rosen will have none of it; yet it can help suggest Beethoven’s arresting opening of his Hammerklavier Sonata that we are dealing with a spread from bottom to top, pa-dum-pa… as if to awaken NE MAY AS WELL BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING: the whole rickety sonority of the earliest Hammerklavier piano, ‘Pa-dum pa-dah di-di dim bum; pa-dum pa-dah di-di dim with the sonata emerging from the chrysalis of the resonance of bum’. With this cluster-clatter of notes, we are launched the machine. Beethoven’s own long pedal marking across all 16 Ointo one of the longest and most varied, exciting and taxing notes may suggest that such an impression is desired. Whatever the journeys in all music, not just the piano repertoire. Beethoven’s distribution of hands, Frederic Rzewski is one who relishes this 29th sonata – his Op 106, known as the Hammerklavier – was echo-chamber more than most. begun 200 years ago. It marked a reawakening of the composer’s Less fancifully, for instance, the pa-dum and the pa-dah can be creative strength after a lull, and feels like a summation of the run together as pa-dúmmpa-dah or given a gap, pa-dum’ pa-dáh. entire repertoire, containing shards of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Or you do the first eight one way and the second the other. Then, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Wagner and on with the slightest feathering, the falling final phrase dim-bum – a to Boulez and Feldman. Prolepsis runs riot; superlatives run dry. tick throughout a piece replete with ups immediately balanced by Fingers are stretched, memory too. Piano tuners despair. At one downs – can wear the garb either of lamentation [dím-bum] or the juncture I seemed to have 106 versions on my list, but apart from stamp of defiance [dim-búm]. Mere crotchets, quavers and semi- anything else the fickle promiscuity of YouTube will have seen off quavers thus offer a lexicon of unimagined meaning – and there’s that moment of divine synchronicity. still three-quarters of an hour to go! Those 16 notes at the very opening are of course open to what can seem like 106 permutations of emphasis, rhythmic nuance, contortion and tempo. Decisions crowd in on the first beat, and HEN I LISTEN TO THE HAMMERKLAVIER, I WANT by bar two there are crucial issues: even the first note is sometimes, to feel I am in the presence of Beethoven most of all. criminally, played at twice its length: a pompous or incompetent Among the greatest performances, it is often self-
transgression that takes a great deal of indulgence to forgive. effacementW that gives their interpretation its power: notable are ⌂
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⌂ Solomon, Friedrich Gulda, Charles Rosen, John Lill and Steven daunted or even tired right from the start – many do; and to have room Osborne. Often these are performances where temptation towards for a little extra pace within the opening movement. It’s equally the obsessively revealed detail is suppressed by command and vision case that in the slow movement, those such as Christoph Eschenbach, of the whole. who sets a clock-defyingly slow tempo (in a recording that was On the other hand, where detail is supreme, our attention may used for a ballet, of all things), have little room to slow down for effect later. be held by our interest more in the pianist than the composer. This COLLECTION POTTER TULLY is a balance especially true of older pianists, or pianists from whom Indeed, rubato in this piece deserves a chapter in itself. Two of © the piece seems unexpected – I am thinking of the likes of Yvonne the greatest exponents of breathing across the entire sonata are Loriod (movingly spell-bound, not always spell-binding), Aldo women: Maria Yudina and Annie Fischer. The latter is so refreshing Ciccolini and Murray Perahia. I confess I wasn’t expecting much that I played her recording again immediately upon discovery. from Rudolf Buchbinder until his rendering revealed less about Sometimes the second movement even seems to license rubato in Beethoven than about his own need for the music; and there are the first and third by virtue of its barely hidden suggestion of a moments in the adagio when Yves Nat adds dusky Debussy to the gallop, a Schubertian horse-ride that should keep strict pace. list of echoes I’ve already mentioned. This second movement is a strange little interlude, like tripe Controversy and schisms of opinion start even before the sausage between fine wines to cleanse the palate, of increasing opening declamation with the notorious fast metronome mark consequence the more the work as a whole seeps into you. In a of minim = 138. (Later, Beethoven’s metronome simply broke.) letter to his friend and secretary Ferdinand Ries (by then living in Let’s not go round in academic and hermeneutic circles: even Fitzroy Square) about the first London performances, Beethoven Professor Tovey agrees, the important thing is not the 138 figure, seems unbothered by the order of the movements; but this is a but the need to generate a sense of edginess – and to bring it off. letter in which he is pleading for some sort of financial return Even ‘monumental’ can be achieved if it isn’t maestoso. There has no matter what, pretending he wrote the sonata ‘in harassing to be a whiff of danger, even at the risk of stretched technique, circumstances […] only for bread’! In fact, the second movement as epitomised by Schnabel and in a grippingly unnerving live is clearly placed where it should be: the risk-taking edge of the performance by Gilels in the early 1980s. first movement and the sensual or divine contours of the third are Sviatoslav Richter, for instance, simply sounds faster than he is by asked to meet here and exchange cards. Not all pianists manage this virtue of his characteristic electricity; Arrau’s energy flows from our encounter: Maurizio Pollini is a noble exception, as are Wilhelm awareness of finicky fingerwork. It is also important not to sound Kempff, Alfred Brendel, Igor Levit and Nelson Goerner. The third movement blends the infinite with the intimate, The composer in a painting from 1820 by Joseph Karl Stieler generally bringing the best out of pianists. It is Beethoven at his most hymn-like, and for once the metaphor bears unpacking: he seems to deal with the divine and the human in one all-embracing communication: a cantilena suggesting fingertips upon the body of the beloved, or eyes gazing upon the stars. In concert, save for the tenor Jon Vickers singing in the second act of Tristan – a passage itself surely inspired by this adagio sostenuto – I have never in any music experienced the erotic frisson of intimate touch as in a performance by John Lill in Edinburgh 40 years ago; nor have I ever been so close to religious ecstasy as with Schnabel on record. Again, questions of tempo are a nuisance here, since sheer slowness is not a guarantee of the presence of the spirit touching on what Paul Bekker called ‘the immeasurable stillness of utter woe’. The music must lap with longing and consolation: Gilels and Grigory Sokolov are among the finest in achieving this, together with Perahia and Osborne too. It is, for me, Walter Gieseking’s finest hour too. Schnabel, once again, is everything. In the last movement, with its relentless fugue, pity the poor pianist. Beethoven did not – which is part of the point here. The challenges of this movement recall Beethoven’s quip when his teacher, the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, complained to the composer about a particularly difficult passage: ‘Do you think I give a damn about your wretched fiddle when the muse speaks to me?’ And indeed Wagner’s retort on being told the music was unplayable by an orchestra: ‘Exactly the effect I am looking for!’ We are not supposed to be comfortable. Besides Schnabel, Arrau is surely one of the most unsettling of interpreters here, joined by Richter and Rosen.
62 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_061-063_F_Repertoire 0606KC.indd 62 07/06/2017 12:30 REPERTOIRE GUIDE TULLY POTTER COLLECTION POTTER TULLY ©
Artur Schnabel’s Hammerklavier brings the listener close to religious ecstasy
OME ODDITIES ARE WORTH MENTIONING ONE BY E BEGAN AT THE BEGINNING. WHERE HAS THIS one: in one of two YouTube videos featuring Yuja Wang, led us? Who wins the laurels? If you are alone the admittedly all-important anatomy of the back muscles on a desert island, it is Schnabel. If a handful of atS work is plain to study. Nonetheless, Ms Wang has given us, by othersW join you, it is Yuja Wang, Solomon and Annie Fischer. some margin, the finest and most complete modern Hammerklavier If the sun and salt get to you, you will hear Rosen, Arrau, Richter, since Schnabel or Rosen. Ogdon perhaps and Rzewski. Conversely, there is Glenn Gould, who recorded the piece The whole beastly business of first choices is anathema, but if I supposedly in a weird re-make of the Schnabel version. Normally the were to be cornered into making a decision, after more than 100 most insightful and unexpected Beethoven pianist, here he gives us hearings, the top choice for me has to be Frederic Lamond: he was his worst record. The composer Frederic Rzewski can be heard in a a pupil of Liszt, a pioneering performer of the work, and played the truly stunning version, observant and wilful by turns, and containing Hammerklavier to the master as his test piece. improvised cadenzas towards the close of each movement, as well Just short of his 60th birthday in 1927, Lamond recorded the as various instances of twiddly Baroque ornamentation. I’m afraid I work. The matrices were cut, but mysteriously disappeared – found this sacrilege completely refreshing and thought-provoking, nobody has heard them in 90 years. Beyond all the others, the most and I suggest you listen to it from time to time. This being a piano perfect version of this sonata may exist only in your head. magazine, I will remain silent when it comes to recordings of the e orchestrated version of the sonata. The various recordings of the Hammerklavier and their availability Beethoven was writing into the future, yet performances on are nowadays so tangled that label and catalogue numbers have been period pianos, such as those by Malcolm Binns and Peter Serkin, omitted. tell you something. Lectures on YouTube by Murray Perahia and especially András Schiff are interesting, though there’s no substitute Where multiple recordings by the same pianist can be found, the artist for reading Rosen or J W N Sullivan, whose account of Beethoven is referred to rather than a specific interpretation. Nor – following places the sonata with a pivotal chapter all of its own. Beethoven himself – has sound quality been a concern.
July/August 2017 International Piano 63
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COVER STORY COVER STORY SHARED AVAILABLE IN EXPERIENCE International Piano Canadian-born Marc-André Hamelin’s NO.44 JUL/AUG 2017 PRINT & DIGITAL unshowy virtuosity and unflagging £5.50 enthusiasm for exploring neglected areas www.international-piano.com of the piano repertoire give him a unique standing among today’s leading pianists. FORMATS Jeremy Nicholas spends time with an old friend who isn’t afraid to share the secrets of his artistic success, and the importance of developing the brain to confront musical challenges PEAK PERFORMANCE INSIDE Beethoven’s mighty SHEET MUSIC Hammerklavier CHRISTOPHER NORTON’S OU HAVE TO LISTEN TO Berlin) and were performing on successive on disc this before we go.’ Marc-AndréPACIFIC nights PRELUDES in Germany and Holland before fires up his laptop and plays flying to London. Neither had had very
‘Ya sound-clip of the last movement 2017 JULY/AUGUST FROM of BOOSEYmuch sleep & before HAWKES their Wigmore recital Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto playedSEE by PAGEand Hamelin43 had endured a splitting two trumpets. Accompanied by a straight- headache all day. A nap in the afternoon SCORING faced piano, one trumpet plays the solo saved him: ‘The public isn’t supposed to line an octave above Hummel’s original, know about these things. You are simply the other an octave below. It’s very funny. there to share the music – and, to a certain POINTS Hamelin laughs a big, generous, full- extent, sell it.’ throated laugh that is infectious. ‘Should I have known Marc-André for more Editing Hummel’s I pack now?’ he asks. He’s cutting things than 25 years, and his playing for nearer REVIEWS | C D s & DVDs fine, since he has to catch the eveningCOMPOSING 30. He has even recorded some of my flight to Dublin. songs (with his former wife, soprano Concerto No 2 The previous evening, I had enjoyed Jody Applebaum). Every time we meet, the Canadian pianist’s triumphant (sold-AT THEthere is a sharingKEYS of enthusiasms. On this out) two-piano recital at Wigmore Hall occasion, he wanted to illustrate a musical with Leif Ove Andsnes. A programmeDo of wepoint judge and went to the piano. works After all this Mozart, Debussy and Stravinsky (Concerto time, I had never noticed what slender PLUS for two pianos, The Rite of Spring). The pair wrists he has. He shows me his stretch: Paderewski The American Recordings
of pianist-composers The complete Victor recordings 1914-1931
APR 7505, 5CDs, 5 hrs 30 mins Beethoven Complete works for solo piano, Schubert Works for solo piano, Volume 2: Four Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor Op 11; ⌂ were preparing for several more dates in D-flat, F, A-flat, D-flat, F in the left hand; ⌂ NEW TECHNOLOGY llll Volume 15: Diabelli Variations Op 120; Six Impromptus D899; Piano Sonata No 20 in A Four Ballades © FRAN KAUFMAN Europe (they will record the programme in A-flat, D-flat, F, A-flat, D-flat in the right. National Airs with Variations Op 105 major D959 Seong-Jin Cho (pf) too harshly? APR’s fi ve-CD Ronald Brautigam (fp) Barry Douglas (pf) DG 479 5941, 79 mins FOR TUNING BIS 1943, SACD, 68 mins Chandos CHAN 10933, 70 mins llll 16 International Piano July/August 2017 July/August 2017 International Piano 17 lllll llll
Ronald Brautigam has chosen the Diabelli It has been three years since Chandos issued While Seong-Jin Cho’s previous (live) Variations to conclude his series of complete the fi rst volume of Barry Douglas’ Schubert recording was something of a mixed bag, MAKE SCALE Beethoven keyboard works for BIS. He is survey (CHAN 10807), so this successor, this new release o ers superb performances not alone in presenting the Diabellis on recorded in February 2016, has been a long of core repertoire. Here is his fi rst-ever fortepiano (Schi and Andreas Steier have while coming. Similar to Volume 1, coupling studio recording, and he shines. The PRACTICE both essayed this territory; Steier has some the fi nal sonata (B-fl at major D960) with the concerto was recorded at Abbey Road. remarkable stops at his disposal) but Wanderer Fantasy and a couple of Liszt’s song Noseda, now the LSO’s principal guest Brautigam is mightily successful. The transcriptions, Douglas has moved a touch conductor, shapes the orchestral instrument, a McNulty copy of a c1822 back in time to pair the preceding sonata contributions superbly, as if his script is to FUN Graf, is powerful and yet refl ects with the Impromptus D899. dispel any illusions regarding the Brautigam’s sensitive playing (Variation 20, I was hugely impressed by Lars Vogt’s ‘ineptitude’ of Chopin’s scoring. Cho sees for example). Brautigam has his own voice. recording of the Impromptus (1827) a few the melodic lines as derived from bel canto, The fortepiano has less variety of tone than months ago, and Douglas’ interpretation is which gives the interpretation a perfectly a modern concert grand, and the gru LD of equal stature. Douglas is a little swi¦ er, lyrical slant; yet it is the attention to detail trills of Variation 6 snarl less than in many but only by a minute overall – and most of that impresses most. Nothing is taken for a modern recording (same in the rapid-fi re, that is accounted for in the fi rst in C minor, granted, while in the central Romanze, Cho MARC-ANDRÉ staccato Variation 10); yet they fascinate Allegro molto moderato. In the remaining spins his line as if from silk. The music has just as much. Variation 27 demonstrates the three pieces the di erences amount to a a lovely sense of space and the pianist fi nds tightness of the bass to perfection, as well as handful of seconds, yet Douglas’ touch a delicious touch that transforms the the excellent clarity of the treble. o¦ en seems brighter and more pointed, skitterings of the fi nale into magic. Brautigam goes to the heart of these while Vogt appears more relaxed. I cannot Recorded three months later in variations: No 22 is fun but, crucially, not choose between them, so both will adorn Hamburg, we have the generous coupling fl ippant. He manages to project the my shelves. of the Ballades. The tender moments of immensity of Beethoven’s structure while Schubert’s 20th Sonata is a remarkable Ballade No 1 are lulling without turning to www.international-piano.com HAMELIN honouring the parts, no small achievement. fusion of the conventional and the original the somnolent; the more fi ery passages still Most crucially, the fugue (Variation 32) has in its reinvention of traditional four- hold perfect clarity, if not the thrill of live 07> a remarkable climax (equivalent in power movement forms and reworking of material performance. The Second is a more to Pollini’s on DG). from an earlier sonata, yet is overshadowed successful, its parts perfectly in balance, Irrepressible explorer The coupling is inspired. Just predating by No 21 (of which there are twice as many voice-leading a particular joy. The the Diabellis, the Six National Airs with recordings currently available). As in the languorous opening of No 3 seems some Variations were published with fl ute or Impromptus, Douglas allows the music way from the prescribed Allegretto, but the violin part ad libitum; but here we hear room to breathe while rendering its interpretation blossoms splendidly; No 4 them freshly on the fortepiano alone. The structure with clear-sighted rigour. It is a fi nds Cho in more consistent form, the 077005 Scottish one, ‘Of noble stock was Shinkin’, is marvellous account, the Andantino a model inner-voice trills superbly done within a fairly dramatic, the Irish ‘Last Rose of of power and delicacy succeeded by a wonderful, overarching sense of fl ow. IPJA17_044-047_R_SheetMusic.indd 44 07/06/2017 10:18 Summer’ beautifully melancholic, the fi nal quicksilver Scherzo, all superbly captured by For both Concerto and Ballades, the return to its theme highly e ective (a Chandos’ rich sound. The resonant acoustic competition is of course huge. Nevertheless, Diabelli in microcosm?). The whole journey of the Curtis Auditorium of Cork’s School Cho has his own voice, perfectly attuned to
772042 presented by these six mini-sets of of Music is another audible di erence with Chopin. If the Ballades hint ever so subtly variations is fascinating: the perfect Ondine’s very natural but intimate sound for that he may fi nd this level of excellence 9 9 coupling to the main event, and the fi nest Vogt: Douglas’ feels like a recital hall di© cult to sustain, there remains a huge of Brautigam’s Beethoven series. performance. Terrifi c. amount to enjoy here. COLIN CLARKE GUY RICKARDS CC
July/August 2017 International Piano 65
IPJA17_065_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 65 07/06/2017 10:57 Why subscribe? V interviews with top pianists and rising talent PLUS! V in-depth features on composers, festivals, competitions and repertoire SAVE AN EXTRA £5 WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE BY DIRECT V exclusive masterclasses and tutorials with IP tutor Murray McLachlan DEBIT TO OUR PRINT OR V reviews, news, updates and regular columns BUNDLE PACKAGE V retrospective pieces to enhance your historical knowledge
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IPSUBS.indd 64 07/06/2017 14:56 REVIEWS | CDs & DVDs
Paderewski The American Recordings The complete Victor recordings 1914-1931 APR 7505, 5CDs, 5 hrs 30 mins Beethoven Complete works for solo piano, Schubert Works for solo piano, Volume 2: Four Chopin Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor Op 11; llll Volume 15: Diabelli Variations Op 120; Six Impromptus D899; Piano Sonata No 20 in A Four Ballades National Airs with Variations Op 105 major D959 Seong-Jin Cho (pf) APR’s fi ve-CD Ronald Brautigam (fp) Barry Douglas (pf) DG 479 5941, 79 mins BIS 1943, SACD, 68 mins Chandos CHAN 10933, 70 mins llll lllll llll
Ronald Brautigam has chosen the Diabelli It has been three years since Chandos issued While Seong-Jin Cho’s previous (live) Variations to conclude his series of complete the fi rst volume of Barry Douglas’ Schubert recording was something of a mixed bag, Beethoven keyboard works for BIS. He is survey (CHAN 10807), so this successor, this new release o ers superb performances not alone in presenting the Diabellis on recorded in February 2016, has been a long of core repertoire. Here is his fi rst-ever fortepiano (Schi and Andreas Steier have while coming. Similar to Volume 1, coupling studio recording, and he shines. The both essayed this territory; Steier has some the fi nal sonata (B-fl at major D960) with the concerto was recorded at Abbey Road. remarkable stops at his disposal) but Wanderer Fantasy and a couple of Liszt’s song Noseda, now the LSO’s principal guest Brautigam is mightily successful. The transcriptions, Douglas has moved a touch conductor, shapes the orchestral instrument, a McNulty copy of a c1822 back in time to pair the preceding sonata contributions superbly, as if his script is to Graf, is powerful and yet refl ects with the Impromptus D899. dispel any illusions regarding the Brautigam’s sensitive playing (Variation 20, I was hugely impressed by Lars Vogt’s ‘ineptitude’ of Chopin’s scoring. Cho sees for example). Brautigam has his own voice. recording of the Impromptus (1827) a few the melodic lines as derived from bel canto, The fortepiano has less variety of tone than months ago, and Douglas’ interpretation is which gives the interpretation a perfectly a modern concert grand, and the gru LD of equal stature. Douglas is a little swi er, lyrical slant; yet it is the attention to detail trills of Variation 6 snarl less than in many but only by a minute overall – and most of that impresses most. Nothing is taken for a modern recording (same in the rapid-fi re, that is accounted for in the fi rst in C minor, granted, while in the central Romanze, Cho staccato Variation 10); yet they fascinate Allegro molto moderato. In the remaining spins his line as if from silk. The music has just as much. Variation 27 demonstrates the three pieces the di erences amount to a a lovely sense of space and the pianist fi nds tightness of the bass to perfection, as well as handful of seconds, yet Douglas’ touch a delicious touch that transforms the the excellent clarity of the treble. o en seems brighter and more pointed, skitterings of the fi nale into magic. Brautigam goes to the heart of these while Vogt appears more relaxed. I cannot Recorded three months later in variations: No 22 is fun but, crucially, not choose between them, so both will adorn Hamburg, we have the generous coupling fl ippant. He manages to project the my shelves. of the Ballades. The tender moments of immensity of Beethoven’s structure while Schubert’s 20th Sonata is a remarkable Ballade No 1 are lulling without turning to honouring the parts, no small achievement. fusion of the conventional and the original the somnolent; the more fi ery passages still Most crucially, the fugue (Variation 32) has in its reinvention of traditional four- hold perfect clarity, if not the thrill of live a remarkable climax (equivalent in power movement forms and reworking of material performance. The Second is a more to Pollini’s on DG). from an earlier sonata, yet is overshadowed successful, its parts perfectly in balance, The coupling is inspired. Just predating by No 21 (of which there are twice as many voice-leading a particular joy. The the Diabellis, the Six National Airs with recordings currently available). As in the languorous opening of No 3 seems some Variations were published with fl ute or Impromptus, Douglas allows the music way from the prescribed Allegretto, but the violin part ad libitum; but here we hear room to breathe while rendering its interpretation blossoms splendidly; No 4 them freshly on the fortepiano alone. The structure with clear-sighted rigour. It is a fi nds Cho in more consistent form, the Scottish one, ‘Of noble stock was Shinkin’, is marvellous account, the Andantino a model inner-voice trills superbly done within a fairly dramatic, the Irish ‘Last Rose of of power and delicacy succeeded by a wonderful, overarching sense of fl ow. Summer’ beautifully melancholic, the fi nal quicksilver Scherzo, all superbly captured by For both Concerto and Ballades, the return to its theme highly e ective (a Chandos’ rich sound. The resonant acoustic competition is of course huge. Nevertheless, Diabelli in microcosm?). The whole journey of the Curtis Auditorium of Cork’s School Cho has his own voice, perfectly attuned to presented by these six mini-sets of of Music is another audible di erence with Chopin. If the Ballades hint ever so subtly variations is fascinating: the perfect Ondine’s very natural but intimate sound for that he may fi nd this level of excellence coupling to the main event, and the fi nest Vogt: Douglas’ feels like a recital hall di cult to sustain, there remains a huge of Brautigam’s Beethoven series. performance. Terrifi c. amount to enjoy here. COLIN CLARKE GUY RICKARDS CC
July/August 2017 International Piano 65
IPJA17_065_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 65 07/06/2017 10:57 REVIEWS | CDs & DVDs
William Kapell: Broadcast and Concert cry from the composer’s marking Brahms Works for solo piano Volume 4: Performances 1944-1952 of modérément animé. Such things perhaps Paganini Variations Op 35; Four Ballades Op 10; William Kapell (pf) remind you that even at his tragic death at a Two Rhapsodies Op 79; Four Pieces Op 119 Marston Records 53021-2, 3 CDs, 203 mins scarcely later age, Dinu Lipatti had already Jonathan Plowright (pf) lllll acquired a poise and lucidity to BIS 2137, SACD, 82 mins complement his regal command. lllll Nonetheless, talk of ‘potential’ (Olin Downes) can seem churlish when faced Recordings by William Kapell are sought as with such glory. Even for waspish Virgil In parallel with Barry Douglas’ fi ne survey eagerly as gold dust. America’s brightest Thomson, Kapell was already ‘one of the for Chandos, Jonathan Plowright has been musical star may have shone all too briefl y: great ones’; while for Claudia Cassidy there setting down his own complete Brahms when returning to California from an was in him ‘the relentless, terrible and cycle for BIS. Douglas purposefully mixed Australian tour, his plane went down. He wonderful compulsion of genius. He had to individual items from di erent collections was 31. So a special thanks to Ward Marston play.’ Such comments capture precisely an into what amounts to personal playlists – for adding to other tributes (most notably, extraordinary nature. very convincingly, it must be said; RCA’s magisterial nine-CD collection). Ward Marston’s reminder and Plowright, on the other hand, adopts the On display once more is an outsized remembrance includes two interviews conventional approach of complete works, talent, one that blazed meteor-like across (sententious in the style of the times and sets/opus numbers. It is the only America, initially in swashbuckling without the mischievous wit that straightforward aspect of his presentation performances of that exotic show-piece, the prompted Kapell to say of Horowitz, ‘If of these marvellous works: let’s be clear, Khachaturian Piano Concerto, while also people understood what his tone meant, this is a magisterially performed and alerting his audience to a deeper sensitivity. he’d be banned from the keyboard’), and a revelatory programme, comprising one Note Kapell’s response to passing shadows touching tribute from the pianist early, one middle-period and one late set as well as brightness in Mozart’s Sonata in Raymond Lewenthal. framed by the two books of the 1863 C major K 330; to the gravitas of the BRYCE MORRISON Paganini Variations. Bach-Busoni Nun komm, der Heiden Earlier instalments in Plowright’s series, Heiland; and to subtle major/minor the fi rst of which was released back in 2012, alternations in two of Schubert’s Ländler. William Kapell in 1948 have all garnered considerable and His style in two of Chopin’s Mazurkas (he consistent acclaim. Volume 4 once again planned to record them all) tells you, too, demonstrates his fl uency of interpretation of a special a nity for that composer’s and command of the keyboard. The clarity most elusive and confessional manner. and fi nesse of Plowright’s playing and Yet in the fi nal reckoning, it is a sureness of touch matches his insights into compulsive brio that leaves its most Brahms’ style. Or styles, I should say, since indelible mark. Kapell’s wit and charm in his way with the early Ballades is as acute Abram Chasin’s Tricky Trumpet, with its and compelling as in the Two Rhapsodies all-American memory of Gershwin, could Op 79 and Four Pieces Op 119. The key to light up even the most dour face. his vision of these works is that they are Meanwhile, few if any pianists have spun integral compositions, and to attain o the reeling 15th Variation from Brahms’ intentions one should play them as Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody with such; thus the Four Ballades are not such sparkle and insouciance. separate works (as Chopin’s are), likewise At the same time not everything would the Four Pieces. have survived Kapell’s intimidating I do not recall when I enjoyed any self-criticism: there are touches of Brahms programme more. This is the new impatience in Granados’ ‘The Maiden and benchmark survey for Brahms as Paul the Nightingale’ from Goyescas; and ‘The Lewis’ is for the Beethoven Sonatas. I Little Shepherd’ from Debussy’s Children’s cannot recommend this more highly. Corner sounds more fl ustered than GR plaintive. The blistering pace of ‘Dr Gradus ad Parnassum’ from the same suite is a far
66 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_066_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 66 07/06/2017 15:46 REVIEWS | CDs & DVDs
Franz Liszt: Portrait of the Man other, was yet another instance of Liszt Complete Piano Music, Volume 45: 12 and his Masterwork an uncalled-for novelty. Overall, Liszt’s Grandes études (1837) Liszt Sonata in B minor range and brio, together with his very Wenbin Jin (pf) Barbara Nissman (pf) public celebrity – his fl aunting of his bird Naxos 8.573709, 72 mins Three Oranges Recordings 3OR-21, 2 DVDs of paradise feathers – was too much for all lll lllll possible rivals. Always, through the murk of so much slander and political contrivance, If anyone needs reminding that Liszt’s you sense the presence of jealousy. This Naxos issue (Volume 45 of their Sonata in B minor is a landmark in the It is therefore hardly surprising that ongoing Liszt Complete Piano Music history of music and a spiritual odyssey of Liszt’s life was clouded by self-doubt and series) of the 12 Grandes études provides profound depth, they should turn to depression (he retired from his career as some illuminating insights. Liszt may have Barbara Nissman’s DVD masterclass and possibly the greatest pianist of all time at been a tirelessly fl eet and productive recital. On the fi rst of her two discs she the age of 36, seeing his ‘success’ as shallow composer, but he was no less tireless a traces, or rather relishes, the twists and and vainglorious). His fi nal years showed a reviser. The advance from the early turns of Liszt’s extraordinary life. And if marked change from ‘exuberance of the prototype for the études is startling. Here in the manner is occasionally over-emphatic, heart’ to ‘bitterness of the heart’ mirrored in the second 1837 version, the rudimentary, her enthusiasm and insight are works ‘grey with the pain of Czerny-esque patterning of 1826 gives way infectious. The facts she relates may be disillusionment’ yet deeply prophetic, even to a massive Himalayan epic prompting familiar, but her commentary is starred when they were dismissed by his enemies as Schumann’s reservations concerning études with a special sense of musical and, above evidence of senility. Ignored and slighted of ‘storm and dread.’ all, human richness. She is quick to point before his death, he turned to alcohol for Forever the pragmatist as well as out that even when Liszt’s religious faith solace and confessed to ‘weariness of living.’ transcendental virtuoso, Liszt quickly was tested to near breaking point, he Nissman’s analysis of music she sees as realised the limitation of writing studies remained steadfast and stoic in a hailstorm her own spiritual barometer is admirably beyond the means of virtually any other of controversy and incomprehension. divided into sections – ‘form and structure’, pianist than himself, so that his fi nal 1851 More than any composer, perhaps, Liszt ‘thematic transformation’, ‘key relationships’, version clarifi es and refi nes writing of an was subject to vagaries of fortune, and like etc – where she lays bare a coherence overwrought complexity. The general all true originals or pioneers he paid a beyond the understanding of Liszt’s thinning of texture creates an altogether heavy price, fi nding himself placed beside contemporaries, extending far into the sharper glitter and focus (paradoxically the his beloved Wagner in opposition to the future. Most of all, in her own concluding result is more rather than less brilliant), and conservative camp represented primarily performance of the Sonata her playing this is the version preferred by virtually by Schumann and Mendelssohn. His shows a burning commitment and a special every Liszt champion – most notably Lazar superstar status (for Nissman he was the capacity to pass on the glory of Liszt’s Berman, György Czi ra and Daniil Trifonov. Elvis Presley of his day) encouraged masterpiece. This DVD set is a vital tool to In the 1837 version, Étude No 4 (later accusations of superfi ciality. His admiration, understanding. ‘Mazeppa’) commences in medias res, indeed worship of Chopin was returned BM without its later storming introduction, with biting scorn (‘as a creator he is an ass’). whereas No 12 appears with a recitative- Meanwhile George Sand, Chopin’s mistress, like opening later omitted in ‘Chasse- saw his religious vocation as attention- Barbara Nissman neige’. Elsewhere the lavishly ornamented seeking, his love of God and the Virgin central sections of No 8 (later ‘Wilde Jagd’) Mary a pose. and No 11 (later ‘Harmonies du soir’) are For Clara Schumann there was ‘too much replaced by more contained writing, of the tinsel and the drum’ about him and showing that economy as well as brevity is his Sonata was beyond the pale: the soul of wit. ‘Nothing but noise and false modulations.’ Wenbin Jin is a hard-working champion His decision to give recitals exclusively on of his cause and even though his his own heralded the start of the solo performances hardly spark with Berman’s concert and was adduced as massive aplomb or Czi ra’s thrilling if a further instance of exhibitionism. His eccentric fi re, he is a more than capable legendary masterclasses, where students advocate, fi nely recorded. were advised to listen and learn from each BM
July/August 2017 International Piano 67
IPJA17_067_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 67 07/06/2017 12:25 REVIEWS | CDs & DVDs
Martha Argerich: Includes Chopin Piano performance in Warsaw with the Sinfonia Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor Concerto No 1 Stravinsky Le Sacre du Varsovia/Kaspszyk (2010), it contains a core Op 18; Variations on a Theme of Corelli Op 42 printemps Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 strength and fi nds Argerich feeding o the Vanessa Benelli Mosell (pf); London P r o k o fi e v Piano Concerto No 3 Ravel Piano energy of live performance. There is an Philharmonic Orchestra/Kirill Karabits Concerto Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 1 elemental aspect to the more propulsive Decca 4814393, 53 minutes Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1 Schumann passages of the fi rst movement, balanced by ll Piano Concerto; Recital in Verbier (Bach, Mozart, melting lyricism (the latter fully fl owering in Grieg, Bartók, Lutosławski and Shostakovich); the Romance). An indispensable adjunct to Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim live at her famous DG version (LSO/Abbado). Vanessa Benelli Mosell, the Italian pianist Teatro Colón. Films: Bloody Daughter (Stéphanie If the RLPO/Groves (Preston, 1977) born in 1987, has recorded works by her Argerich) and Evening Talks (Georges Gachot) cannot vie with the Berliners (Abbado, mentor Karlheinz Stockhausen (Decca Martha Argerich (pf) DG), Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 4812491) with conviction. However, the ghost EuroArts 2063798, 7 DVDs, 679 mins here is as incendiary as one might expect of Sergei Rachmaninov, is not easily assuaged. llll (stunning double octaves). Groves is a fi ne Rachmaninov never recorded his Corelli accompanist and only occasionally do the Variations, of which he had mixed views, so Liverpudlian strings reveal their second- his version does not stand as challenge or This is a monumental tribute to a league status. The Prokofi ev Third (LSO/ reproach to later pianists. Instead, Richard monumental talent. Sadly, documentation Previn), in the Fairfi eld Halls, is if anything Farrell’s muted, restrained poignancy, Pietro is slim, and what there is has been badly an even fi ner performance. Her better- Scarpini’s adamant dignity, Shura edited (random italics, continental known Dutoit and Abbado performances Cherkassky’s powerful emotional quotation marks used in English text) or remain fi rmly in place, but the added visual undercurrents, Igor Komarov’s nuanced just plain wrong (eg the running order for element adds greatly to this piece; the slow sensitivity and Vladimir Ashkenazy’s the fi nal DVD). All this is a pale refl ection movement contains huge beauty. haunting spaciousness serve as hallmarks. of the 11 hours of glory enclosed within. The DVD with Barenboim at Argentina’s Mosell is winsomely wilting in the theme, A fi lm by Argerich’s daughter, Stéphanie, Teatro Colón in 2014 holds a stunning Rite while her fi rst variation is suddenly no- creates far more than local colour. Bloody (reviewed in IP Sept/Oct 2016, page 75). nonsense, like a brisk nurse at a hospital. A Daughter is an intimate portrait, an amazing Both the fi nal two DVDs contain gold from lack of poetry is evident as she romps through chronicle of Argerich’s life from the the Verbier Festival; the sixth includes a the variations confi dently, albeit without fanaticism she can inspire (Argerich masterly Bach Partita No 2, featuing a much emotional identifi cation or a ection. chopsticks!) to the travails of her personal life timeless Sarabande. The Bartók Violin In Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto, the and her struggles to maintain some sort of a Sonata No 1 with Renaud Capuçon is one of composer himself as soloist avoided sounding family against the demands of an the fi nest, most nuanced versions available. imposing or picturesque, like an aural international career. She isolates Schumann as The fi nal disc is stu ed with concertos. postcard of Russianness. Worthy followers, the composer whose directness of expression Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Chailly including Benno Moiseiwitsch, Rosa touches her most deeply; we see Kovacevich and the Leigzig Gewandhaus, with its Tamarkina, Simon Barere, Cli ord Curzon, towards the end of the fi lm as an integral part bejewelled fi nale, is one of Argerich’s fi nest Eileen Joyce, Gary Gra man, Eugene Istomin, of her life. But more than anything we see an accounts (there are many Argerich Grigory Sokolov, Zoltán Kocsis and Arcadi honest portrayal of a very human person. performances of this work, including Volodos, made the work a perpetual discovery. Another fi lm, Evening Talks by Georges versions with Celibidache and Tennstedt at In the concerto’s opening, Mosell’s Gachot, is more traditional and a tad duller. Yet the helm); Beethoven’s Second Concerto drooping chords turn self-consciously Argerich’s honesty is astonishing. Some of the (Verbier, 2009) is incisive, separated from a imposing and monumental, with a excerpts make one beg for more: the close of splendid Shostakovich First by an impossibly laboriousness far from Rachmaninov’s Liszt’s Concerto No 1 with the New fl uent Scarlatti Sonata in D minor Kk141. aesthetic as she strives mightily against Philharmonia/Leinsdorf in 1973 is particularly Finally, the Ravel G major with Temirkanov trudge-through-the-mud tempos of Karabits, intriguing, and the infl uence of Gulda is (Stockholm, 2009 Nobel Prize Concert), whose heavy-handed approach is less than considered (she was his only pupil: he was where the zip of the rapid-fi re writing is ideally refi ned. Mosell is a very able pianist her ‘greatest infl uence’). Seeing her win the o set against beautiful languor. and gets through the score handily, with an 1965 Chopin Competition is heart- This is a great tribute. Perhaps EuroArts especially sprightly fi nal movement; but the warming. might consider making it feel even more work really requires more atmosphere and The second DVD is short: Chopin’s special by taking some care in its presentation? narrative communication. Concerto No 1 with two brief encores. A live CC BENJAMIN IVRY
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IPJA17_068_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 68 07/06/2017 14:04 REVIEWS | CDs & DVDs
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3; Medtner Shostakovich Piano Concertos: No 1 in C The Piano Music of Ralph Vaughan Piano Concerto No 2 major Op 35; No 2 in F major Op 102; String Williams: Includes The Lake in the Mountains; Mark-André Hamelin (pf); London Quartets, arr. Giltburg for piano: No 2 in A major Introduction & Fugue; Fantasia on a Theme of Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Jurowski Op 68: III Waltz; No 8 in C minor Op 110 Thomas Tallis; Fantasia on Greensleeves; A Little Hyperion CDA68145, 62 mins Boris Giltburg (pf), Rhys Owens (tpt); Royal Piano Book. Suite of 6 Short Pieces lllll Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vassily Petrenko Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omordia (pfs) Naxos 8.573666, 70 mins Somm SOMMCD 0164, 71 mins lllll lllll
This superb coupling pays tribute to the One of the key questions to be asked when This wonderful collection of Vaughan- unstinted admiration of Rachmaninov for selecting a recording of the two Williams’ keyboard music spent several Medtner and vice versa (even when Shostakovich piano concertos – which weeks in the Classical Charts earlier this Medtner languished in obscurity). together last less than 45 minutes – is what year, and deservedly so. The disc is split Hamelin’s performances are a revelation in are they coupled with? The two-piano 50-50 between solos, played by Bebbington, the sense that his legendary command is Concertino Op 94 is one option (Toradze, on and duos (amounting to just three of the 18 always at the service of a poetic and musical Pan); Alexeev trumped most with The Assault tracks) where he is joined by Omordia. The impulse. In the Rachmaninov, his playing is on Beautiful Gorky, the mini-concerto from major works are for two pianos: the su ciently eloquent and red-blooded to the fi lm score to The Unforgettable Year 1919 Introduction & Fugue (1945-6) and the 1947 send one climax a er another soaring and (EMI Classics); more recently, Melnikov transcription of Fantasia on a theme of expanding. The opening is broadly paced (Harmonia Mundi) included the Violin Thomas Tallis. The Fantasia on Greensleeves and infl ected (the reverse of many glib Sonata, which is longer than either concerto. (1934) is given as a duet. alternatives), a er which his technical and Boris Giltburg has gone for novelty here: his There’s a compelling understanding musical mastery declare themselves in every own transcriptions for piano of the Waltz between the two pianists in their bar. His sprint through the cadenza’s from the String Quartet No 2 (1944), and the performances together. The opening of the intricate patterning (he chooses the less entire Eighth Quartet (1960). Tallis Fantasia takes my breath away in its ornate of the two) builds to a thunderous Readers of Testimony know the crucial version for string orchestra, and does so too apotheosis. He allows time in the autobiographical signifi cance of in this rapt, quite swi account for two Intermezzo’s skittering scherzando variation Shostakovich’s Quartet No 8, and Barshai’s pianos. Paired keyboards were evidently for every note to tell, and his weight and searing arrangement of it for string orchestra much on RVW’s mind at this time, with the muscularity in the launch of the fi nale are, is well known. What Giltburg’s piano adaptation of the C major Concerto for Two again, a powerful antidote to more frenetic transcription loses in the strings’ sustaining pianos in 1946, the same year in which the readings. Less overtly romantic than Gilels intensity, it gains in intimacy, as if trying to Introduction & Fugue was completed. This or Cliburn, less driven than Argerich, capture the composer at the piano rendering latter is an extraordinary, deeply felt homage Hamelin’s performance is more notable for the work for his own edifi cation. It remains to Bach that unfolds over an enormous its breadth and nobility. as uncomfortable a listen (for all the right timespan, with passages both delicate and In the Medtner, the pianist surpasses reasons) as in its more familiar versions. robust, requiring great concentration to alternative recordings by Demidenko and The concertos, however, must remain the shape correctly, as it most defi nitely is here. even by the composer himself, taking the main event, and Giltburg’s new accounts Bach fi gures again in the solo Chorale & composer’s outwardly discursive idiom by with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choral Prelude on ‘Ach, bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu the scru of the neck yet never at the Orchestra in top form under Vassily Christ’ (1930), notable for being, at least in part, expense of musical quality. Together with Petrenko are fi rst class. Tempi are a touch a triple recomposition – Bach twice, then his four-disc set of the Piano Sonatas, measured in No 1 – I prefer Alexeev’s and RVW – of a 16th-century chorale by Calvisius. Hamelin he could hardly have made a more Melnikov’s more headlong approach – but Of the solo items, though, the evocative The persuasive case for Medtner. Orchestra and the slow movements are beautifully realised. Lake in the Mountains (1947 – based on music conductor do the soloist proud, and Rhys Owens is as fi ne a trumpet co-soloist as from the fi lm score The 49th Parallel) is the Hyperion’s sound is as immaculate as ever any pianist could wish for. In the gentler most impressive, but proved RVW’s with a fl awless balance between pianist and Second Concerto, written for the composer’s swansong for the instrument. Bebbington is orchestra. This could easily become my son, Maxim, the rapport between soloist and wonderfully light-fi ngered here, as he is in record of the year. orchestra is a joy to hear. the two short suites. Terrifi c sound. BM GR GR
July/August 2017 International Piano 69
IPJA17_069_R_CDRevs 0706OM.indd 69 07/06/2017 14:04 REVIEWS | CDS IN BRIEF
Chopin Piano Sonata No 2 Op 35; 4 Ballades; Nocturne boasts beautifully spun legerdemain, critical praise as a BBC New Generation Fantaisie in F minor Op 49 the line impeccably bel canto. The Étude Op artist. Here, he offers an intelligent Angela Brownridge (pf) 10/5 is competition velocity and applause is exploration of the concept of ‘Heimat’ Challenge Classics CC 72728, SACD, 67 mins rightly retained. Yet it is in the Préludes Op 28 (home), reflecting his own relocation to llll Nos 9 and 12 that Hewitt makes strong London from his homeland and presenting individual statements. She finds a remarkable music from both territories. Accompanying Chopin’s music has been a key part of Angela sense of the exploratory in the Polonaise. The Appl – who responds to texts and their Brownridge’s musical life. Her recordings previously excellent recording quality loses implications with ease – is pianist James have already included the Four Scherzos depth but gains close focus for the Mazurkas. Baillieu. His way with Schubert’s Seligkeit is issued by Cameo Classics in 2014. That disc The Sonata provides the most uncomfortable exemplary, he captures the bitter-sweet included the Op 49 Fantaisie (re-recorded listening, often extremely splashy while tinge of Reger’s Des Kindes Gebet to here) and the Third Sonata. Now we have the sometimes nearly losing momentum. perfection and provides a wonderful bed of Four Ballades as the centre of focus, with the CC sound for Schreker’s astonishing Second Sonata as the lead-in. The Sonata is Waldeinsamkeit. Throughout, Baillieu finely played, its unusual structure (closer to proves himself in harmonically elusive that of Prokofiev’s Fourth Concerto than any Massenet Complete Piano Music textures; his Schubert Nachtstück finds him 19th-century exemplar) used to good Maurizio Zaccaria (pf) spinning a carpet of twilight. A real winner. advantage in a nicely paced performance. The Aevea AE16003, 80 mins CC Ballades dominate proceedings, however, and llll are the most involving music and interpretations on the disc. Compared, for Can this collection really said to be Debussy Préludes Book I; Images I; Nocturne example, to Imogen Cooper’s accounts of ‘complete’? Zaccaria omits Massenet’s Alessandra Ammara (pf) Ballades 1 and 4 and the Fantaisie reviewed Grande Fantaisie sur ‘Le Pardon de Ploëmel’, for Piano Classics PCL0110, 65 mins last year (IP Sept/Oct 2016, page 76), example, included by Stefan Irmer on MDG. lllll Brownridge is consistently swifter by a Nevertheless, Zaccaria has a light touch well minute or so and she underscores the music’s suited to Massenet’s underrated piano music. In a world overflowing with Debussy piano innate drama. Challenge Classics’ sound is The Dix Pièces de genre is exquisite, discs, Alessandra Amara proves there is room excellent and naturally clear. A disc I will particularly the ‘Barcarole’ and ‘Carillon’. for more. This is an impeccably produced revisit. Zaccaria’s pedalling throughout is spot-on. recording, with expert booklet notes by GR Some of this music is very much of the salon Ammara’s husband and duo partner – the two ‘butterfly’ pieces (Deux Pièces of Roberto Prosseda. The first book of Images is 1907) are a case in point – yet the ‘Toccata’ beautifully drawn. Ammara’s variety of Chopin Piano Sonata No 3; Nocturne Op 15/2; bursts on the scene like a blaze of light. The touch is limitless, and her excellently Etudes: Opp 10/5, 25/7, 10/7; Préludes Op 28/9- delights come in many forms: Un momento prepared Fazioli supports her journeys of the 12; Polonaise in F-sharp minor Op 44; Fantaisie in musicale (1897) is a terrific piece, and imagination. It’s clear that great thought has F minor Op 49; Three Mazurkas Op 50 Angela deserves to be heard more. The gone into the vexed subject of pedalling: Hewitt (pf) live at the 10th International Chopin Improvisations of 22 years previously are far Prosseda’s description of Debussy’s Piano Competition, 1980 lighter, as one might expect. Fascinating counterpoint as ‘polytimbric’ seems Fryderyk Chopin Institute NIFFCD 631, 73 mins repertoire, complete or not. particularly apposite here. Ammara has all lll CC the technique required for the Préludes; her greatest strength, though, is in the individual While this disc functions as a fascinating characterisation of each. Very few fall short addendum to Angela Hewitt’s discography, its Heimat Lieder by Schubert, Reger, Brahms, of the mark, though perhaps ‘Cathédrale’ place is for hardened Hewitt fans only. Hewitt Schreker, Wolf, Strauss, Poulenc, Britten, loses its sense of grandeur and expanse. was not a prizewinner in 1980 – this is part of Williams, Bishop, Warlock, Ireland and Grieg Finally, and best of all, is the Fauré- a series of discs of performances by unplaced Benjamin Appl (baritone); James Baillieu (pf) influenced Nocturne. Like the Fantaisie for pianists who went on to fame. All Sony 88985393032, 67 mins piano and orchestra, this is late-Romantic performances are live, and at times these lllll but still identifiably Debussy. Ammara unexpurgated accounts can make for lavishes great affection on a piece in which uncomfortable listening. It is in the more Young German baritone Benjamin Appl she evidently fully believes. Recommended. intimate music that Hewitt triumphs. The has recently received a fair amount of CC
70 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_070-071_R_CDsIBrief 0706OM.indd 70 07/06/2017 14:26 REVIEWS | CDS IN BRIEF
Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin; Miroirs; Gaspard structure (32 Variations in emulation of resonates with Messiaen’s contemplations de la nuit Beethoven, Scherzo for the left hand, of the Divine while also using his own Alexander Krichel (pf) Fantasia and conjoined cadenza-Finale) is musical vocabulary. All movements are Sony 88985377642, 79 minutes melded together entirely convincingly. The projected by the composer with the utmost ***** Concerto has previously been recorded by concentration: when Jesus falls for the Barbara Nissman (Pierian) and Dora de second time (Station VII), it is as if we Marinis (Naxos), yet this newcomer has the observe the event objectively, frozen in This is a beautifully realised disc. The edge, at least in terms of the quality of time. The use of silence recalls the music of young German pianist Alexander Krichel’s accompaniment and of Chandos’ Morton Feldman; spaces between notes fourth album for Sony offers Ravel spectacular sound, which is the best of the bristle with energy and potential, as performances that are fit to stand alongside three. Highly recommended. relationships between the individual and those of Osborne, Pogorelich and Argerich. GR the collective are explored. The Meditations The Tombeau is superbly played, the acts as a vital part of the experience, an ornamented musical surface of the opening exploration of the power of chordal ‘Prélude’ nicely pointing towards Couperin. Darvill-Evans Seeds of Time Siwan Rhys (pf) structures. An immersive experience, deeper The ‘Fugue’ is carefully handled, like a Prima Facie Records PFCD056, 65 mins than its duration might imply. gentle reveal of a porcelain miniature, lllll CC though such delicacy makes for an almost over-careful ‘Forlane’. The robust ‘Rigaudon’ The nature of time is the subject here, blasts any such doubts out of the water, and inspired by a quote from Macbeth. Subtitled Through the Hours Rush Hour; Drift; In Your the piece culminates in a superbly ‘Meditations for piano’, the disc presents a Shadow; Little Miss; Through the Hours articulated, exciting ‘Toccata’. Miroirs sequence of 14 movements that ruminate Meg Morley (piano) underscores Krichel’s natural intelligence: gently on familiarity, stillness, melancholy, EP available on CD Baby, iTunes and Amazon, ‘Noctuelles’ is brilliantly delineated, as are chance and the grief of a loved one’s 27 mins the layers of sound in ‘Une barque sur passing. Gentleness is at the heart of l’océan’. Gaspard is extremely impressive, the Darvill-Evans’ musical expression: he lists Australian-born, London-based pianist clarity Krichel brought to Tombeau once Chopin, Satie, Debussy, Glass and Ryuichi Meg Morley has been associated with the more in evidence in a very different world. Sakamoto as influences. London Ballet School and London ‘Scarbo’ is much more than virtuoso – it is a The first piece introduces the composer’s Contemporary Ballet Theatre. Active in nightmare vision in sound. world: ‘Clouds’ tells a story using simple jazz via the smooth sounds of the group CC gestures and resonance. Here, as elsewhere, MIA Panboola, this is her debut solo the music is deceptively complex and poses release. Morley’s style is suffused in jazz many subtle demands. Siwan Rhys seems and references the Impressionists, revealing Ginastera Orchestral Works, Vol 2: Piano the ideal interpreter, ever-fresh in her new depths on each encounter. The piece Concerto No 2 Op 39; Panambí Op 1 delivery. Sound quality is superb, capturing Rush Hour starts surprisingly ruminatively Xiayin Wang (pf); Manchester Chamber Choir, the resonant spaces invoked by Darwill- given the title, but rises to an energetic BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Juanjo Mena Evans to perfection. A lovely disc. climax. Morley’s lovely touch is caught Chandos CHAN 10923, 69 mins CC well in Drift (a clear example of lllll Impressionist jazz) while In your Shadow gives us the shade of a dance. Little Miss Chandos’ series of orchestral works by Vincent Stations of the Cross; Meditations on offers a playful interlude before the Ginastera has thus far centred on his Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane expanse of Through the Hours, a mini ballets: Estancia in Volume 1 and here Simon Vincent (piano) tone-painting referencing bells, including Panambí (1937), with its somewhat Vision of Sound VOSCD-003, 32 mins the Westminster Chimes and Debussy’s Ravel-like female choral ending. Mena’s lllll ‘Cathédrale’. account of this early, impressionistic score is This EP precedes a full album of ravishing. Simon Vincent’s Stations of the Cross (2016) Morley’s works with Richard Sadler Even more impressive is the Second comprises 17 short, slow movements, (double-bass) and Emilio Caroselli Piano Concerto (1972) played with inspired by a visit to Jerusalem and by (drums). Visit Morley’s website for further coruscating virtuosity by Xiayin Wang. Its William Fairbanks’ wood sculptures in details: megmorleymusic.com seemingly fragmentary four-movement Lincoln Cathedral. Vincent’s vision CC
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IPJA17.indd 72 06/06/2017 15:30:09 REVIEWS | BOOKS
cannot be particularly enthusiastic.’ So in Whereas Cliff analysed political motivations harmony is Schiff with his interlocutor and impacts of this win, the pianist Isacoff, that when asked a sexist question, he gives founder of Piano Today magazine and author a sexist answer. The query, ‘Is Beethoven of A Natural History of the Piano (Souvenir more difficult for female pianists than Press, 2013) cleaves closer to the lives and other composers?’ gets this response: ‘There experiences of keyboard aspirants. are not very many good female Beethoven There are generous doses of gossip about players. I know this is a dangerous how as a young musician, Cliburn was statement, but it is true. Annie Fischer, already an amphetamine addict, enabled by who played Beethoven fabulously, was the a New York quack known as Dr Feelgood. exception. Beethoven is very masculine, There are candid observations about but this must not lead to forcing.’ Cliburn’s gay social circle at the Juilliard Asked about early models, Schiff lavishes School, where the pianist Herbert Rogers, praise on Arthur Rubinstein, but about Emil a student of Olga Samaroff and Rosalyn Gilels, he states: ‘Strangely, I didn’t like him Tureck, entertained classmates by dressing Music Comes from Silence: then. Never. I don’t really know why. [Gilels] Conversations with Martin Meyer up in practice rooms as Dame Myra Hess. Published in German: Musik kommt aus has made some beautiful recordings. But Another student-in-drag at Juilliard circa der Stille when I think about my live experiences – 1950, one of Isacoff’s sources assures us, was By András Schiff Budapest, London, New York – I have to say Alexis Weissenberg. Henschel Verlag 248 pages, €24.95 that one concert was weaker than the other. Cliburn’s story, the reader is loftily Gilels, of course, was an extremely nervous informed, has the ‘outlines of a Homeric type, who trembled before every concert.’ epic, with great forces arrayed against each One of our most intellectually refined Of the essays, perhaps the most touching is a other like deities on a great battlefield; pianists, András Schiff, who celebrates his tribute to Schiff’s teacher, Pál Kadosa (1903- challenges that tested the strength of 64th birthday in December, has previously 1983) who also taught György Ligeti, György individual souls; and a hero who rose to collaborated with the Swiss journalist Kurtág, Zoltán Kocsis and Dezső Ránki. mythical heights in an extraordinary victory Martin Meyer, a mainstay of the Neue BENJAMIN IVRY that proved only fleeting, before the gods Zürcher Zeitung. Meyer is a dab hand at of fortune exacted their price.’ Cliburn chatting with pianists, as shown by his Veil is compared to a pianistic rival, John of Order: Conversations with Alfred Brendel Browning, by evoking rivalries between (Faber & Faber, 2002). Meyer’s previous Mozart and Clementi; Liszt and Thalberg; book of discussions with Schiff, Beethoven’s Schnabel and Paderewski; Horowitz and Sonatas and their Interpretation (Beethoven- Rubinstein; and curiously, the painters Haus, 2007) is familiar to CD collectors Matisse and Renoir. Isacoff sets the record in the form of informative booklet notes straight about the legend – for such it is – to Schiff’s Beethoven sonatas series (ECM that Sviatoslav Richter, as a Tchaikovsky New Series 4812908). Competition juror, made Cliburn’s win This new volume of discussions, possible by extremely unbalanced voting. augmented by solo essays from Schiff, takes Isacoff’s human sympathy with his subject, us into the performer’s workshop, mulling by all accounts a friendly, gentlemanly over programming choices. Meyer is nothing soul, may result in soft-pedalling Cliburn’s if not probing. Apparently dissatisfied with fawning relationship with his mother Schiff’s recorded repertory of Bach, Mozart, Rildia Bee. Tennessee Williams is referred Schubert, Schumann and Hungarian When the World Stopped to Listen: to because mother and son called each Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph, and its moderns, he demands to know why the Aftermath other ‘Little Precious’ and ‘Little Darling,’ pianist does not play the concerto by Arnold By Stuart Isacoff although Liberace and Mr Joyboy in Evelyn Schoenberg. Schiff explains: ‘Honestly, Knopf Waugh’s The Loved One may be more à this piece does not appeal to me so much. 304 pages, £22.50 propos. Cliburn is presented as a vulnerable All in all, my relationship to Schoenberg is personality whose eccentricity may have been somewhat problematic. Of course, I respect even more acute than Glenn Gould’s. The him. But Alban Berg grabs me much more.’ Piano lovers are familiar with the UK latter did function as a professional pianist Meyer wonders about Schiff’s views on historian Nigel Cliff’s Moscow Nights for decades, while Cliburn cracked early and Ferruccio Busoni, whom the pianist finds (HarperCollins, 2016) about how a rangy definitively. That he managed to achieve a ‘very interesting artist!’ Despite studying Texan named Van Cliburn triumphed at a career even briefly is more compelling Busoni’s Toccata BV 287, Schiff adds: ‘About the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in than any details about him winning a piano the colossal [Busoni] Piano Concerto … I 1958, winning international superstardom. competition. BI
July/August 2017 International Piano 73
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Schubert: Impromptus Op post 142 Muzio Clementi: Six Progressive Nikolai Podgornov’s Piano Circus (D935) Sonatinas Op 36 Universal Edition Leisinger/Levin/Badura-Skoda Authentic Revised Edition edited by Arthur Houle UE 36 756 Wiener Urtext Edition Abundant Silence ISBN 978-3-85055-776-4 ISBN 978-1-938818-59-2
Schubert’s four Impromptus Op 142 may This is a unique edition in every way, particular have tended to err on the dry side, never have enjoyed quite as much permeated with warm wit and enthusiasm. so this all comes across as tremendously popularity as the earlier Op 90 set, but they Containing no fewer than 21 pages of refreshing. If teachers are looking for a way remain cornerstone works, forming what is enthusiastic footnotes, six pages of preface to excite pupils about authenticity then they essentially a large-scale F minor sonata and an abundance of editorial suggestions, could do no better than turn to Arthur when performed together as a group. insights, scholarly research and musical Houle’s Clementi project as a source of Though the volatile virtuosity prevalent wisdom, it is clearly a labour of love. inspiration. I find myself more fired up over throughout the agitated fourth piece may The editor Arthur Houle is primarily a this music than ever before, even though it prove beyond the technical limits of most performer-teacher of great experience – and has been in my library for over four decades. players, the other three pieces in the set are tremendous humour. I have no previous more manageable. The opening experience of editions that begin with The circus has excited Russian composers Impromptu is an ambitious hybrid of tongue-in-cheek questionnaires, but such is from Stravinsky to Shchedrin, providing rondo and sonata, making much use of the case here: ‘At the risk of contravening excitement, inspiration and novelty from silence for structural effect. The second in critical edition protocol, please indulge this which new musical ideas can spring forth. A-flat is possible for players who have brief “True or false” quiz.’ Houle continues Piano Circus is the 12th anthology that reached Grade 6 in terms of technical by way of explanation – not that this is Universal have issued from Leningrad-born ability, while the exquisite set of variations really needed – to describe the edition as Podgornov (b 1950), and is as colourful, in B-flat (No 3) remains one of 19th one ‘which uniquely blends rigorous user-friendly and unpretentious as we have century’s most cherished jewels. scholarship with imagination and a come to expect: 14 well-contrasted miniatures This new edition from the ‘dream team’ soupçon of humour’. For all the banter, this written for Grades 6- to 8-level pianists. of Ulrich Leisinger (editing) Robert Levin is the most scholarly edition of these The influences on Podgornov are (notes) and Paul Badura-Skoda (fingering) famous sonatinas that I have encountered obvious: he writes in the illustrious is beautifully laid out, clear and fascinating (and there is no shortage of alternatives). tradition of his distinguished Russian in terms of background information. Using the sixth rather than the fifth edition predecessors. Kabalevsky is heavily Wonderful, to give but one example, to have (as Maurice Hinson famously did in 1978) referenced in ‘Curtain up, Clear the Ring!’ the insight from Levin that there is a world has led to some astonishing changes in works whilst the neoclassicism of Prokofiev can of difference in Schubert between that I thought I knew well. Most striking are be felt in ‘The Harlequin’. Though ritardando (getting slower), decrescendo the many changes of registration, turning Podgornov’s ‘Circus Polka’ is not quite as (getting softer) and diminuendo (getting passages containing routine repetitions into witty and striking as Stravinsky’s famous softer and slower). The notes also clarify something more striking. We also have new piece of the same title, it still manages to much of the confusion that can arise in this ornamentation, ‘music box’ pedalling and real project some welcome characterisation and repertoire between dots and dashes on the clarity regarding tempi and misconceptions spirit, as indeed do most of the numbers in score, as well as suggesting solutions to accumulated over generations. the collection (even the sparsely textured Schubert’s inconsistencies with articulation The publication is steeped in information: ‘The Fakir’). From a pedagogical in general. In terms of fingering, one could practically every note is fingered, and there is perspective, the technical challenges are hardly have a better guide than the a formal analysis of each section. Most very healthy, while the range of tempo and outstanding Schubertian Badura-Skoda, amusing of all is bar 22 of the first movement key makes for contrasting musical pictures, and his suggestions for the (potentially very in Sonatina No 3 where at two points we are all valuable for teaching. Bravo once more awkward) right-hand thirds in the fourth offered four possibilities for fingering! on an excellent issue. impromptu are revelatory and extremely All a bit manic and obsessive? Of course! helpful. Strongly recommended. Musicology and editorial footnotes in MURRAY MCLACHLAN
74 International Piano July/August 2017
IPJA17_074_R_SMusicRevs 0606KC.indd 74 07/06/2017 15:50 Next issue SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 © SASHA GUSOV © SASHA
Boris Giltburg
RUSSIAN ROMANTIC Piano prodigy Boris Giltburg has taken the world’s concert halls by storm since winning Search for a job... the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2013. A respected interpreter of Rachmaninov, his 2016 album of Études-tableaux was praised by IP for its ‘richly nuanced’ readings. We meet to discuss Search a wide range of music his latest disc for Naxos of Rachmaninov’s monumental Second Piano Concerto and performing arts jobs, from performing contracts to teaching REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT IP marks the centenary of Russia’s 1917 positions, and administration revolutions with a two-part series on the development of the Russian School of piano roles to conducting vacancies. playing. Part I traces the origins of this tradition during the last decades of the 19th century
Keep an eye on our website ASHKENAZY AT 80 Benjamin Ivry explores the vast and varied as well as our Twitter and discography of the Russian-born pianist and Facebook feeds for the conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who turns 80 this year most up-to-date list of job vacancies! PIANO STUDIES Conservatoires courses for pianists in 2018 ON SALE 19 AUGUST
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uke Ellington’s presence in this column is long overdue – yet it’s often said that his instrument was the orchestra, and his albums of piano jazz are relatively few. Ellington D(1899-1974) is best-known as leader of a swing-era dance band, and as the most important composer in the history of jazz. He recorded prolifically, mostly his own compositions – of which there are, amazingly, around 2,000 – and with his orchestra, yet is rarely featured as soloist. As the New Grove comments, he saw himself primarily as catalyst and feeder of ideas and energy to the band, and could be silent for entire choruses or indeed pieces. Nevertheless his piano often has an essential role in his orchestral performances, as in the classic yet avant garde minor blues ‘Ko-Ko’ from 1940. Ellington took piano lessons from the age of five with the aptly- named Mrs Clinkscales, but his interest in the instrument really developed only in his early teens, after hearing the older Harlem stride stylists James P Johnson and Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith. Ellington’s leading contemporaries were Earl Hines (born 1903), Count Basie and Fats Waller (1904), and Art Tatum (1909). Basie was like Ellington primarily a big-band accompanist; the others are regarded as real virtuosi, but in fact the picture is more complex. Ellington started out as as a ragtime composer and stride pianist, subsequently influenced by French Impressionist pianism, blues and gospel; he disparaged the New Orleans style of Jelly Roll Morton. As critics have commented, he shares this template with those he influenced, notably Thelonious Monk, Stan Tracey and Abdullah Ibrahim – and his influence on other jazz pianists was fundamental. Matthew Cooper’s Duke Ellington as Pianist: A Study of Styles DUKE comments that James P Johnson influenced Ellington with his exciting use of rhythmic displacement, avoiding a monotonous ‘oom-pah’ bass: ‘Instead, he found graceful and imaginative ways to ELLINGTON vary the left-hand accompaniment [creating] a range of surprising accents and [regulating] tension masterfully within each of his phrases.’ However, Stanley Dance remarks that while in 1928 Earl Hines recorded solos that ‘effectively revolutionised the art of jazz piano... Ellington’s sympathies always remained staunchly with the stride school’. Though his reputation as a jazz In his early years, Ellington’s soloing was rather formulaic and variable in quality, but the original 1927 recording of ‘Black legend rests on his prolific output and Tan Fantasy’ has a classic early stride solo, while in 1928 he recorded the celebrated solo ‘Black Beauty’. When pioneering bassist as a composer and his career as James Blanton (1918-1942) joined the Orchestra in 1939, Ellington had to rethink his left-hand style. They collaborated in some famous an inspirational band leader, duets, among the first in jazz to feature the bass in a solo role. In 1972, Ellington recorded duets with bassist Ray Brown in tribute to Duke Ellington’s piano-playing Blanton (This One’s For Blanton!, Pablo Records). Cooper makes the important point that along with Count Basie, formed the foundations of his Ellington developed the art of ‘comping’: He ‘began to pare down the left-hand stride pattern ... his playing became more sparse, development as a musician, somewhat minimalistic’ – allowing his soloists to stand out. It’s also true, however, that, as Gunther Schuller comments, he played ‘deep having started lessons on the in the keys, [producing] the fullest, purest resonance of [the] strings’. instrument as a five-year-old, Len Lyons comments that Ellington’s style ‘establishes a dividing line between those who use the instrument percussively [Ellington, going on to master the art of Monk, Tyner, Taylor] and those who emphasise its harmonic- melodic flow [Hines, Tatum, Peterson, Evans]’. There is, of course, a stride piano. By Andy Hamilton continuum – indeed, there is within each player. 76 International Piano July/August 2017
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‘odd matching’, the consensus is that it is inspired. Ellington wrote Ellington started out as as a the music on the date, with Mingus and Roach in mind. Here, ragtime composer and stride extended improvisations contrast with the more concise, perhaps less spontaneous Piano Reflections. Money Jungle is one of the great pianist, subsequently influenced albums of piano jazz. The five recordings below are restricted to piano solo, duo or by French Impressionist pianism, trio. Other important piano recordings include the remarkable, largely atonal ‘Clothed Woman’ from 1947 (99 Hits: Duke Ellington blues and gospel Vol 1, 99 Music); while in August 1972, Ellington followed his small-group engagement at the Rainbow Grill, New York with a solo studio recording, only recently issued as An Intimate Piano By the 1950s, due to writing commitments, the once-prodigious Session (Storyville). For further insights into Ellington’s pianism, technique had slipped, as Cooper puts it – or more accurately, check out the excellent NPR profile: www.npr.org/programs/ became less overtly virtuosic: ‘It is as if Duke, while bypassing the jazzprofiles/archive/ellington_pianist.html entire bebop era, made the transition to a modern jazz style’. The e Duke Plays Ellington from 1953, reissued as Piano Reflections, is a Take Five: Duke Ellington classic piano trio album. Piano in the Foreground from 1961 features 1. ‘Caravan’, from Money Jungle (United Artists/Blue Note) relaxed stride, and ballad Romanticism on ‘Fontainebleau Forest’ and ‘Springtime in Africa’; but ‘Summertime’, with brutal stabbing 2. ‘Pitter Panther Patter’’from Solos, Duets and Trios (RCA) chords, is an astonishing free exploration of Gershwin’s song, from 3. ‘Melancholia’, from Piano Reflections (Capitol) the opera Porgy & Bess, which Ellington referred to disparagingly 4. ‘Summertime’, from Piano In The Foreground (Columbia) as ‘black on stage, white everywhere else’. The classic Ellington 5. ‘Black Beauty’, from many albums including Black Beauty (Le piano album is Money Jungle with bebop masters Charles Mingus Chante Du Monde) and Max Roach. While jazz historian Mark Gridley refers to an
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July/August 2017 International Piano 77
IPJA17_076-077_R_Take5 0606KC.indd 77 07/06/2017 10:16 MUSIC OF MY LIFE Music of my life For the veteran Hungarian pianist and conductor Tamás Vásáry, great music is something that puts him in touch with the ‘beyond’, accessing the deepest mysteries of the human heart and releasing emotions that make tears flow
F I WERE ASKED TO NAME THE the experience of the character singing ‘beyond’ of everything – the part of a greatest pianist, I would name Annie the song. human being that is unspeakable. Fischer. She was not only a pianist; she Gigli in Un ballo in maschera is another When I was 20, I was madly in love with Iwas a poet who was capable of identifying example of a great singing actor. I have a singer. I have always been in love: I first herself with the spirituality of the greatest chosen this because of the way he delivers fell in love at the age of three! Love, for me, composers. She was a revelation the first his Act I aria, ‘È scherzo od è follia’. In the is essential. I accompanied her in a Brahms time I heard her in concert because of opera, the gypsy Ulrica has just prophesied song, Feldensamkeit. It’s about unfulfilled the way she conveyed the emotional that Riccardo will be killed by the first love. Fischer-Dieskau wanted to work with story of the work. There would always guy who shakes his hand. His best friend me and he wanted to sing Brahms – this be a moment when I had to cry. It’s quite Renato then enters and shakes hands. So song was in the programme. We recorded something to be able to involve someone on the outside, he doesn’t believe what he’s it a few months later. Peter Frankl is one of so emotionally. There are many recordings been told, but in his heart he’s taking it my best friends. He and his wife told me of her I could have chosen, but I’ve selected seriously: what the gypsy says may just be that when they want to demonstrate to any the K482 concerto because her Mozart possible. He is crying and laughing while guests the most beautiful music they’ve playing was superlative. She was a great he is singing! I’ve never heard anything like ever heard, they play them this song with lover of opera and she understood that that. It’s one thing to cry and sing – but to Fischer-Dieskau and me. the key to playing Mozart is opera. With laugh at the same time? I once played this e her pedalling, the piano was talking and song on the piano to my master, Kodály, INTERVIEW BY JEREMY NICHOLAS singing. This is a quality I am miss very and asked him what he thought. ‘Well,’ much in young pianists today. They are he said, ‘Verdi had great knowledge of technically incredibly proficient but the human soul. It’s like the last E major Mozart there is a lack of colour and that singing Nocturne of Chopin which is both tragic Piano Concerto No 22 in E-flat major K 482 quality. Nobody sings any more. In my and consoling.’ Annie Fischer/Philharmonia Orchestra/ childhood everybody was singing: the The same sort of thing applies to the Wolfgang Sawallisch Praga Digitals PRD250339 cooks, the peasants in the field … Annie is farewell quintet in Così fan tutte. It starts singing on this recording – not just in the with a tonic harmony and then the singers Édith Piaf Dumont/Vaucaire slow movement but in also in scales and come in. You cannot pinpoint why it is Je ne regrette rien fast passages. so great. It touches you infinitely. If you EMI Gold 94636842325 (3 CDs) Which brings me on to Édith Piaf. Her have to force me to name my favourite Verdi voice cannot be compared to the voice composer – the most difficult thing – I Un ballo in maschera of an opera singer, but what she does is would have to say Mozart, because with Rome Opera/Tullio Serafin EMI 69993 astonishing. When I first heard Piaf, I other composers you can pinpoint why the Mozart immediately bought all her recordings. music is so great, why a particular moment Così fan tutte Really you have to cry when you listen to touches you. With Mozart it is impossible Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus/Karl Böhm some of these songs. The sound may not be to put your finger on it. Take the opening Warner Classics 0825646913268 beautiful but what she does with it is more of the second movement of the G major Brahms beautiful than many opera singers. She is a violin concerto. Even just thinking about Feldeinsamkeit Op 86/2 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/Tamás Vásáry great actress and, like all great actors, you are it, I have to cry! Why? It’s what is ‘beyond Audite AUDITE95635 not aware that she is acting. She embodies the music’. That is what interests me: the
78 International Piano July/August 2017
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BA...CHOPIN AND HIS EUROPE 2017 The13th International Music Festival 12–30 August Warsaw
From Bach to Chopin —— over 40 concerts Symphonic, oratorio, opera, chamber music and recitals / Great soloists, top class ensembles / Winners of the most prestigious international competitions / Music from the Baroque to the 19th century on period instruments / Rediscovered Polish masterpieces —— Martha Argerich / Nelson Freire / Piotr Anderszewski / Mikhail Pletnev Garrick Ohlsson / Nicholas Angelich / Nelson Goerner / Jan Lisiecki / Dmitri Alexeev Yulianna Avdeeva / Yundi / Howard Shelley / Gabriela Montero / Seong-Jin Cho Vadym Kholodenko / Philippe Giusiano / Andreas Staier / Alexei Lubimov Alexey Zuev / Alexander Melnikov / Kristian Bezuidenhout / Lorenzo Coppola Olga Pashchenko / Pawe∏ Wakarecy / Julian Rachlin / Marcin Zdunik / Jakub Jakowicz —— Grzegorz Nowak / Jacek Kaspszyk / Gidon Kremer / Andrey Boreyko Fabio Biondi / Philippe Herreweghe / Václav Luks / Gustavo Gimeno / Giovanni Antonini komorek design, redesign, undesign —— Europa Galante / Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century / Collegium Vocale Ghent Il Giardino Armonico / Freiburger Barockorchester / Collegium 1704 Kremerata Baltica / Sinfonia Varsovia / Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra I, Culture Orchestra / Orchestra of the Beethoven Academy / Belcea Quartet Apollon Musage`te Quartett
SEE YOU IN WARSAW!
/Chopin Institute www.chopin.nifc.pl
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