Greetings from the St. Stephen’s Concert Series

This week’s virtual concert is a 50 minute piano recital performed by Henry Kramer, when he and Alex Beyer were two of the five finalists in the 2017 American Pianists Awards competition. Earlier that year Henry and Alex had competed in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, where they won Second and Third Prizes respectively. That is when I first heard Henry play. In the final round he gave an awesome performance of Prokofiev’s 2nd piano concerto, but what impressed me even more was his playing of Scarbo from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, one of the most difficult pieces ever written for piano. (When Ravel composed Scarbo in 1908, he deliberately tried to create a piece more difficult than Balakirev’s Islamey.)

It seems that Ravel has become one of Henry’s specialties. The Friday Letter on May 29 featured three works of Ravel, his G major Piano Concerto, the “Jester” from Mirrors, and Pavane for a Dead Princess. For his April concert at St. Stephen’s he planned to play Revel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.

On this week’s concert he plays the first movement, Ondine, from Gaspard de la Nuit. The three movements of Gaspard are inspired by the poetry of Aloysius Bertrand. Ondine, according to the poem, is a mermaid who sings to a man, describing her fantastic world and trying at length to seduce him. The man, however, is married to a mortal, and when he explains this to Ondine, she cries, laughs, then disappears as quickly as she first appeared.

Another major work on the program is Chopin’s B-flat minor Sonata, whose third movement is the famous funeral march. After that comes a movement whose soft scurrying passage work evokes the swirling of wind over graves.

A sonata by Haydn opens the recital. “Since God gave me a cheerful heart,” Haydn once said, “He should forgive me if I serve Him cheerfully.” The third movement of the sonata is as cheerful as they come.

The four imaginative short pieces of Ligeti which close the recital leave one wanting to hear more.

Enjoy the beautiful piano playing. Stay well.

Joe and Dorothy ...