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Home , Eileen Joyce, Geoffrey Tozer, Roger Woodward

GEOFFREY TOZER IN CONCERT Osaka 1994

Mozart Concerto K 467 • Liszt Raussian Folk Song + Rigoletto + Nighingale Geoffrey Tozer in Concert | Osaka 1994 Osaka Symphony Orchestra

Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart (1756-1791) Concerto for and Orchestra no. 21 in C, K 467 1 Allegro 13’34” 2 Romance 6’40” 3 Rondo. Allegro assai 7’14”

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) 4 Russian Folk Song 2’55” 5 Rigoletto 6’44” 6 Nightingale 4’04”

Go to move.com.au for program notes for this CD, and more information about Geoffrey Tozer

There are more concert recordings by Geoffrey Tozer … for details see: move.com.au P 2014 Move Records eoffrey Tozer was an artist of Churchill Fellowship (twice, ), MBS radio archives in and the first rank, a consummate the Australian Creative Artists Fellowship Sydney, the BBC archives in London and musician, a concert (twice, Australia), the Rubinstein Medal in archives in Israel, , Hungary, and recitalist with few peers, (twice, Israel), the Alex de Vries Prize Germany, Finland, Italy, Russia, Mexico, possessingG perfect pitch, a boundless (Belgium), the Royal Overseas League New Zealand, Japan and the United musical memory, the ability to improvise, (United Kingdom), the Diapason d’Or States, form an important part of Tozer’s to transpose instantly into any key or (), the Liszt Centenary Medallion musical legacy; a gift of national and to create on the piano a richly textured (Hungary) and a Grammy Nomination international importance in music. reduction of an orchestral score at sight. for Best Classical Performance (USA), Throughout his career Tozer resisted He was a superb accompanist and a becoming the only Australian pianist to the frequent calls that he permanently generous collaborator in chamber music. achieve such distinction. re-locate to the northern hemisphere and He was also a . Geoffrey Tozer died on 21 August sign with a major international agent. Tozer composed from childhood 2009 at the age of just fifty-four. After Whatever this cost him in career terms, and left more than 160 compositions Tozer’s untimely death, journalist James he proved it was possible to achieve several of which he performed publicly Campbell described him in the media as international renown as a pianist while in Australia and overseas. His prodigious ‘Australia’s greatest and most recorded based permanently in Australia. His abilities were recognised early in his pianist’. Tozer’s greatness is certainly overwhelming motivation was always childhood and during a professional evident in his recorded output and to bring music to the people whether career that lasted for nearly fifty years witnessed by his vast performance this meant playing for a local audience he developed into a mature artist, fully history which exceeds that of any other or piano students in regional China, realising his abilities and earning renown Australian pianist. Esteemed Australian giving a Master Class in Mexico City or around the world with recitals and such as , Noel performing for three weeks on a tour of concerts on five continents. He made his Mewton-Wood, and country towns in South Australia. He was first recording in 1963 and, as an exclusive among those whom invariably motivated to use his talents artist of Chandos during his adult career, Tozer admired, certainly achieved to make music at every opportunity, produced thirty-four recordings of greatness, but few pianists anywhere and regarded this as a duty which was distinction, six commercial recordings for can rival Tozer’s repertoire or his output more important than whether the several Australian record companies and of recorded performances. The body of performances themselves took place in hundreds of other recordings mainly for more than 600 recordings which Tozer the Australian outback, the Sydney Opera the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, produced between 1963 and 2009 fully House, the , the Arts including complete concertos of Bach, justified Campbell’s description. Today Centre in Gulangyu, China, or in Carnegie Beethoven, Mozart and Medtner on many of Tozer’s recordings can be found Hall. By March 2009, when Tozer gave film. Tozer won numerous awards in the ABC archives. They, along with what proved to be his final concerts for during his career including the Winston other recordings by Tozer housed in the large audiences (30,000 people) at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, he had on 15 April 1963 that the eight year old had met Eileen Ralf, the pianist whose performed in at least forty countries Tozer gave his first public performances teaching he later described as ‘the over a period of forty-six years with to be preserved on recording: a recital, greatest musical gift given to me’. To many of the world’s major orchestras organised by Marjorie McAlpin, for which assist the young prodigy, Trans Australian and conductors. As an exclusive artist Tozer played music of Bach, Mozart, Airlines gave Tozer unlimited free travel of Chandos he had produced a series Beethoven, Pergolesi and Bartok. Later his between Melbourne and so that of recordings which had brought mother wrote in her diary that the young Tozer could have weekly lessons with him acclaim as a ‘grand master’ of his pianist had performed well: ‘Geoffrey Eileen Ralf in Hobart. During the next instrument and which, in their quality showed his ability to work for perfection five years, under the watchful eyes of and diversity, became a testament to his …despite some laboured playing.’ During Ralf and her husband Thomas Matthews, musical genius. the year Tozer made extremely rapid Tozer became an experienced, fledgling Tozer was conceived in , but progress. On 27 August 1963, he gave concert pianist, giving numerous recitals was born in on 5 November 1954. his first broadcast recital on ABC radio, and more than forty concerts with the He lived there with his mother Veronica playing Bach Preludes No 4 and No 5 and major orchestras in various Australian and brother Peter until October 1958 Beethoven’s Sonata Opus 49 No 2. Several cities. He performed concertos of Bach when the family moved to Melbourne. weeks later he performed Bach’s Concerto and Grieg, the first movement of Brahms Tozer’s father was Geoffrey Conan- in F Minor with the Melbourne Symphony No. 1, the five Beethoven Davies, a brilliant scholar who had been Orchestra for an ABC television broadcast. concertos, Haydn’s Piano Concerto in educated at Bromsgrove and, from the On 13 April 1964 he performed the D Hob XVIII for a large audience at the age of fifteen, at Keble College, Oxford same concerto with the Astra Chamber , Melbourne University. Speaking in in 2001, Orchestra conducted by George in February 1965 when he was just Tozer recalled, Logie-Smith at the Nicholas Hall in ten years old and at least nine Mozart ‘I was born in the Indian Melbourne. Felix Werder, music critic for Concertos, including Concerto 10 K 365 in a small town high above the winter The Age wrote: for two which he performed with snowline called . The first ‘An interesting feature of the concert was Eileen Ralf and the Tasmanian Symphony music I heard in my cot was my mother the debut of nine year old Geoffrey Tozer Orchestra conducted by Matthews on playing and teaching the piano, and as soloist. It was a performance of great 19 May 1968. For these achievements he Beethoven works played on the windup charm that would have done credit to became the youngest recipient in the gramophone by .’ a seasoned campaigner, displaying fine world of the Fellowship Veronica Tozer was herself a gifted musical talent and a natural instinct for when he was thirteen, moving to England musician and pianist. Recognising the a Bachian phrase, particularly beautifully to further his studies in 1969. prodigious gifts which her young son realised in the arioso.’ Tozer constantly composed during the possessed, she decided to re-locate to the The previous summer, while on years of his early musical development. musical city of Melbourne. It was there, holidays in Tasmania, the young Tozer By the time he moved to London, he had produced more than 120 compositions on Green Sleeves written down only in a Competition in Belgium and the Royal and, at times, had contemplated a career rough outline, but plays a complicated Overseas League Competition in London. as a composer, rather than as a performer. woven stream of legato that puzzled me He made his international debut on 17 However, by the age of thirteen, his sheer at first for its vague familiarity – a very August 1970 in London at a Promenade brilliance on the piano and the constant, effective variation indeed which he likes Concert in the Royal Albert Hall playing consuming impulse to perform meant playing. Another is in the style of a horn Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 15, K 450 with that his career pathway was set. Although pipe!’ On 10 November 1963, five days the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted he would continue to compose from time after Tozer’s ninth birthday, his mother by . Important engagements to time, particularly during 1978 when he provided some rare insights into the form, followed with Tozer giving performances attained new heights of brilliance with meaning and value of Tozer’s impulse to in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, France and several adult compositions, the majority compose when she wrote, sic: Britain, including invitations from Daniel of his compositional work took place ‘It is a very long time since Geoffrey Barenboim’s English Chamber Orchestra during his years as a child prodigy. felt as free to improvise as he did last and from to perform Veronica Tozer’s detailed, chronological night. I think it is important for Geoffrey at the 1971 . Tozer diaries are replete with references to to think out his feelings at the piano – distinguished himself at Aldeburgh both her young son’s compositions. On 10 he is experimenting all the time, and as a recitalist and as an accompanist for February 1963, Waldemar Seidel visited ideas flash into his mind and return the great cellist Rostropovich. During the Tozers at home to hear Geoffrey play. to be developed, a turn of phrase will the European tour a Belgian newspaper Decades earlier Seidel had taught the remind him of something he has heard confidently predicted that, ‘Geoffrey young Noel Mewton-Wood and he was or knows, and you see it grow only to Tozer will become one of the greatest ‘amazed’ by the young pianist who now laughingly hurtle into something else pianists in the world.’ If greatness is sat before him. Veronica Tozer recorded held together by brilliant scale and measured by the quality of sound that, ‘It was a very nice evening – Geoffrey arpeggio passages – trills and single produced by an instrumentalist, by the played his own compositions and wanted reitterated notes as if searching for the ability to interpret music so as to move an W. Seidel to see all of his composition next opening. His performance was non audience through a gamut of emotions books’. Most of the compositions were for stop and I eventually had to break the while demonstrating a unique sensibility piano, but sometimes the young Tozer spell to get him unwound for sleep. He and phenomenal piano technique, by a would compose for other instruments, was exhausted. I feel happier about him.’ coverage of the repertoire that rivaled developing some of his manuscripts from Between 1969 and 1971, Tozer lived in that of , by pianism improvisations. One Saturday morning, England earning considerable distinction of the highest standards for more than on 21 March 1963, his mother noted that in Britain and Europe. In 1969 he became forty years and by a love of music that ‘Geoffrey was improvising in a masterly the youngest ever semi-finalist in the sustained an international career for four manner on his violin’. In October she Leeds Piano Competition, later winning decades, performing on every continent wrote that, ‘He has composed Variations First Prize in both the Alex de Vries Piano while living mostly in Australia, then Tozer has an assured place among the great Tozer gave superlative accounts of both Melbourne. During the service Rosamund pianists. concertos and they were broadcast on Illing sang a moving rendition of By 5 November 1994, when Tozer ABC radio on 19 April 1996. For reasons Schubert’s Ave Maria. Then the former celebrated his fortieth birthday in that have yet to be fully explained, Tozer Prime Minister of Australia Melbourne he had scaled the peaks of the was never again invited to perform with who, since 1989 had been Tozer’s greatest repertoire, reaching the pinnacle many any of the major Australian orchestras. and most important patron, galvanised times and was riding a huge wave of He quickly became aware of this and, the congregation of more than four success, unprecedented for an Australian in 1997, in a front-page newspaper hundred people with his impassioned pianist. Recent highlights had included story, pointed out that, ‘It’s a waste to eulogy, lamenting the loss of such an the Australian premiere of the Medtner have someone like me here, not being irreplaceable artist. Piano Concerto No 1 in C Minor Opus 33 used’, thereby putting the Australian © 2014 Peter Wyllie Johnston with the Symphony Orchestra music industry on notice, in case they (1992), the Medtner Piano Concerto No 2 had missed the point. Fortunately, from in Finland, a performance conducted by 1997 for the next seven years, Tozer’s Leif Segerstrom and broadcast in Europe schedule of international engagements (1993), Tozer’s first tour of China at the was busier than ever and he scaled invitation of the Ministry of Culture, with new heights of musical achievement, recitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing giving some of the finest performances and other cities (1993), the complete of his career. These included Tozer’s sonatas of Beethoven at the Melbourne London premiere performance and International Festival (1994) and Mozart’s recording of the Roberto Gerhard Piano Piano Concerto No. 21 in Japan (1994). The Concerto (Gramophone Critics’ Choice, wave of success continued internationally 1998), his Berlin Festival performances until 2004, but came to a premature of the Schabel Sonata and other end in Australia at the Sydney Opera Schnabel compositions (2001), and his House on April 12, 1996. That night performances in China, also broadcast Tozer gave one of the most astounding live on Chinese national television, of the performances of his career when, in Yellow River Concerto (2001 and 2002). the first half of the concert program, Tozer’s private funeral was held in he played Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D the Windsor Convent Chapel which was Major K 175 and followed this minutes filled to capacity with close friends and later with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No relatives. Four weeks later, in accordance 3 in C Opus 26. Few pianists in the world with Tozer’s wishes, his Memorial Service would dare to undertake such a feat, but was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral in