GEOFFREY TOZER in CONCERT Osaka 1994
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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 Piano 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, Australia), MBS radio archives in Melbourne and the first rank, a consummate the Australian Creative Artists Fellowship Sydney, the BBC archives in London and musician, a concert pianist (twice, Australia), the Rubinstein Medal in archives in Israel, China, Hungary, and recitalist with few peers, (twice, Israel), the Alex de Vries Prize Germany, Finland, Italy, Russia, Mexico, Gpossessing 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 (France), 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 composer. 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 pianists such as Eileen Joyce, Noel performing for three weeks on a tour of concerts on five continents. He made his Mewton-Wood, Percy Grainger and country towns in South Australia. He was first recording in 1963 and, as an exclusive Roger Woodward 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 Royal Albert Hall, 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 Hobart 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 Tasmania, but progress. On 27 August 1963, he gave concert pianist, giving numerous recitals was born in India 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 Piano Concerto 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 Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne University. Speaking in Berlin 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 Himalayas 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 pianos which he performed with snowline called Mussoorie. 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 Artur Schnabel.’ a seasoned campaigner, displaying fine world of the Winston Churchill 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 Colin Davis. 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.