No.

79 • January/February 2022
www.international-piano.com

INSIDE
18 PAGES OF

EXPERT ADVICE FOR EVERY PIANO ENTHUSIAST

FREE
SHEET MUSIC

NICOLAS
NAMORADZE
Turning imagination
into reality as a performer
and composer

ARE YOU READY

FOR THE FUTURE?
Ingolf Wunder on
musicality in the age of AI

FIERCE CONVICTION
Celebrating legendary Chopin
interpreter Fou Ts’ong

£6.50

PLUS Ronan O’Hora unravels the mysteries of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata

International courses for amateur pianists in 2022
 CONTENTS

5 EDITORIAL
Technology: friend or foe?

6 LETTERS
Your thoughts and comments

7 NEWS & NOTES

Gilmore Festival names 2022 Young Artists
••• Italian pianist wins James Mottram
Competition ••• German manufacturer
GEWA unveils new digital piano

TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

10 ONE TO WATCH
Chopin Competition winner Bruce Liu

12 IN BLACK AND WHITE

Is it wise for pianists to criticise their peers?
21
14 ILL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
Charivari wonders why anyone would want
to be a pianist in today’s world

24 BACK TO NATURE
Einaudi addresses the threat of climate
change

34 EDUCATION FOCUS
Murray McLachlan introduces his

37
new technical refresher course for
recommencing piano enthusiasts

SHEET MUSIC
37-58 REPERTOIRE FOCUS
Beethoven’s Sonata No 17 in D
minor Op 31/2 – I Largo-Allegro
37 Masterclass with Ronan O’Hora
39 Know the score

49 NEW MUSIC I
Moon, Refracted by Nicolas
Namoradze

53 NEW MUSIC II
Donald Thomson’s Celtic Piano Music

16 74
NATHAN ELSON

from EVC Music

60 SELF PORTRAIT
Alfonso Soldano records his own
transcriptions of works by Rachmaninov
and Debussy SPECIAL FEATURES
62-70 NEW RELEASES 16 ALL IN THE MIND 26 ARE YOU READY FOR
CDs, books and sheet music Nicolas Namoradze shares his THE FUTURE?
revolutionary ideas on music and Ingolf Wunder calls for a return to
72 IN CONCERT neurology as he prepares to launch his old-school musicality to help us thrive
Bent Sørensen’s latest concerto premieres new album for Steinway & Sons in the age of AI
in Copenhagen

74 MUSIC OF MY LIFE
21 FIERCE CONVICTION 30 SUMMER NOTES
Yulia Chaplina finds inspiration in the Celebrating legendary Chopin International courses for amateur
recordings of Frank Sinatra interpreter Fou Ts’ong pianists in 2022

www.international-piano.com International Piano January/February 2022 3

 Available 7/1/22

Peter Donohoe
Mendelssohn: Songs
without words Vol.1
CHAN 20252

‘Performances of this calibre suggest that, at long

last, Busoni’s music may be coming into its own’
Gramophone
‘Donohoe, always musically convincing, overcomes
all technical challenges with apparent and disarming
ease.’ - The Sunday Times

CHAN 20237
 EDITOR’S NOTE

Technology: friend or foe?

T
he pandemic has fundamentally altered our relationship
with technology. During periods when we have been
physically separated by lockdowns and social distancing,
all of us have come to rely on technology to connect
with our colleagues, friends and family. It has also offered a lifeline
to performers and venues who would otherwise have been
completely cut off from their audiences.
In these respects, technology has been a force for good.
Yet some are still concerned that its long-term impact
will be more detrimental than positive. In the pages that
follow, two of today’s leading pianists set out their cases
for and against the changes technology is bringing to our
musical lives.
For Austrian pianist Ingolf Wunder, dangers abound.
Already, he suggests, many artists have lost their
connection to real musicality and have come to
resemble robots: ‘You switch them on and they all
sound the same’. As a result, he says, ‘classical music
is becoming shallower and more standardised’. His
solution? ‘A return to intuitive music-making based
on old-school values.’
Nicolas Namoradze, this month’s cover star, offers a more
upbeat perspective. As both a pianist and composer, he is
harnessing the potential of technology to dig deep into our
understanding of how music works. When discussing Ligeti,
he asks, ‘Is there a number we can put to how stable, or atonal,
a particular passage is?’ The answer, he suggests, can be found
by using a computer to generate graphs that ‘track the dramatic
narrative of each piece’ – a highly complex mathematical process. ‘I
had to put the computer through many millions of calculations. It’s
like analysing a painting for patches of colour and gradation.’
Others prefer to sidestep the question of technology
altogether, instead seeking inspiration from the natural world.
This edition introduces Einaudi’s latest solo album, Underwater,
which addresses the threat of climate change; Scottish composer
Donald Thomson evokes the beauty of waterfalls in his fast-
flowing miniature ‘The Fairy Pools’; and Namoradze looks
up to the heavens in Moon, Refracted. All these creative
expressions demonstrate that music offers the perfect
synthesis of science and nature.
Owen Mortimer, Editor
International Piano o�ers a rich mix of inspiration and
guidance to pianists and piano fans around the world, from
dedicated amateurs and students to professional pianists,
teachers and a�cionados.
Celebrating the piano in all its forms, including the fortepiano
and digital keyboards, each edition of our magazine is packed
with interviews, features, news and reviews showcasing the top
artists of today and yesteryear. Practical advice for players runs
the gamut from articles on technique and repertoire to learning
resources and study courses, plus the latest developments in
piano technology.
Our goal is to draw together the fascinating strands that make
the piano such a popular instrument, enhancing every reader’s
knowledge and supporting those who strive to master its challenges.
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www.international-piano.com International Piano January/February 2022 5

 LETTERS
Write to International Piano, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB,
email international.piano@markallengroup.com or tweet @IP_mag. Star letters SPONSORED BY
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FLUFFED NOTES interesting and well-reasoned wasn’t mentioned. I refer to Dame

It is unfortunate that your
review of Igor Levit’s new album
On DSCH misspelt Ronald
Stevenson’s name throughout
(‘Critic’s choice’, Issue 76, page
56). Poor Ronald faced enough
trouble in his lifetime trying to
secure an enduring reputation,
and with Levit’s recording for
Sony his Passacaglia on DSCH
has finally received international
recognition. Nice to properly
know the name of the man who
composed it though!
John Humphreys, via email
SOUND REVELATIONS
I particularly enjoyed your
Editor’s Note in December
(‘Recording now and then’, Issue
78, page 5). It contained such
observations that I enjoyed
reading it twice over. Your
comment about the tumbling
costs of recording meaning
the expense no longer has to
be reserved only for the very
pinnacle of performances
somehow managed to be both
obvious and revelatory at the
same time! Thank you for always
producing a magazine of such
high quality from first page to last.
Steven Matthews, via email
NOTHING LIKE A DAME
Though I much enjoyed Bryce
Morrison’s recent article on
British piano playing (‘The art of
understatement’, Issue 76, page
20), I was surprised that one
of our greatest current players
SIM CANETTY-CLARKE
Imogen Cooper. Besides a superb
control of sound she has bags
of technique even if she doesn’t
use it for display. Her records
over the past few years show too
her range.
Brian Proctor, Carrickfergus, UK
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
Regarding Donald Manildi’s letter
in Issue 78 (page 6), perhaps I
should have replaced the word
Superb control: Imogen Cooper
‘complete’ with ‘comprehensive’
when describing Géza Anda’s
EMI, Testament and DG dismissive of other issues and
recordings. But talking to Anda dreaded live performances being
on several occasions both in released without his critical
London and at his home in scrutiny. The Testament and
Zurich, he made it clear that DG issues offer the essential
these were the only discs that Géza Anda.
gave him happiness. He was Bryce Morrison, via email

6 January/February 2022 International Piano www.international-piano.com

 NEWS NOTES

Gilmore Festival announces 2022 Young Artists

T he Gilmore Piano Festival in
Kalamazoo, Michigan has
named pianists Janice Carissa
Gilmore 2022 Young Artists
Janice Carissa and
and Clayton Stephenson as the Clayton Stephenson
recipients of the 2022 Gilmore
Young Artist Awards. Each
will receive $15,000 to further
their musical careers and
education plus $10,000 towards
commissioning a new piano
composition. They can both
be heard in solo recitals and
orchestral performances during
next year’s festival, which takes
place 24 April to 15 May 2022.
Pierre van der Westhuizen, the
Gilmore’s executive and artistic
director said: ‘In both Janice
Carissa and Clayton Stephenson
we see a compelling future for our Stephenson play immediately Robert McDonald at the Curtis are bestowed every two years on
artform. They blend dedication to reminds you of another element Institute, while Stephenson is promising pianists aged under 23
their craft with their own creative of youth: a sense of wonder. In currently pursuing a bachelor’s who live in the US. Candidates
impulse, resulting in two unique addition to his technical abilities, degree in economics at Harvard for the Award are nominated by
artists. It was obvious to the he has managed to find his and a master’s degree in piano music professionals from around
committee that Carissa has an own creative voice early on. The performance with professor Wha the world. Among the 38 pianists
intelligent, musical personality, Gilmore is excited to be able to Kyung Byun at the New England who have previously received the
and that she still exudes a youthful recognise and support these two Conservatory. Gilmore Young Artist Award are
joy which so often gets lost in the young artists in the years ahead.’ Founded along with the Yuja Wang, Kirill Gerstein, George
competitive grind of the music Indonesia-born Carissa is a Gilmore Artist Award in 1989, Li, Daniel Hsu and Maxim Lando.
industry. Seeing and hearing student of Gary Graffman and the Gilmore Young Artist Awards TheGilmore.org

GEWA launches new digital piano and app

German digital piano maker
GEWA has unveiled its latest DP
series model, together with a new
app that allows users to select
and edit their favourite sounds.
The DP 345 o�ers a weighted
keyboard and high-resolution
sampling of a Steinway D
grand piano. A calibration tool
allows the keyboard response
to be �ne-tuned, while the
instrument’s ‘virtual piano
technician’ can be used to adjust
parameters such as resonance, pianos to
attack and tuning. Its traditional drums,
cabinet design features an headphones
acoustic bar for added realism. and cases.
Educational add-ons include The company’s
a metronome with preset global reach
rhythms and a lesson function includes
that promises a growing library of holdings in
practice pieces. Asian
GEWA was founded in Saxony factories that
in 1925 and produces a wide supplement its operations
range of musical instruments in Germany.
and accessories, from digital gewamusic.com

www.international-piano.com International Piano January/February 2022 7

 NEWS & NOTES
Italian pianist wins RNCM James Mottram Competition
T he RNCM James Mottram
International Piano
Competition has been won
by 20-year-old Italian pianist
Elia Cecino, who performed
Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1
at the final in Manchester on
5 December. Henry Cash from
Huddersfield, UK was placed
second, followed in third place
by Italian/American pianist
Giulia Contaldo. All three
Elia Cecino performs Chopin
at the RNCM Concert Hall
NEWS IN BRIEF
The Linz-based piano sheet music
subscription service OKTAV
has become the world’s fastest-
growing music platform. Its
catalogue currently features over
20,000 pieces, with around 100
more being added every week.
David Kitzmüller, OKTAV founder
and CEO, says: ‘We are proud to
be working with Faber Music and
other renowned publishers such
as Alfred Music and Bärenreiter.
Our last big coup was signing
a licensing agreement with the
largest major label – the Universal
Music Publishing Group. All of
8 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
finalists were accompanied by
the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra under the direction of
Joshua Weilerstein.
Cecino is a graduate of Italy’s
Cesena Academy and is currently
studying with Eliso Virsaladze at
the Fielsole School of Music. His
debut album was released in 2020
by Suonare Records, followed
by an all-Chopin recital disc for
OnClassical in 2021.
this has accelerated our global
expansion. The realisation is
gaining ground that the future
belongs to digital sheet music.’
OKTAV’s subscription packages
can be tailored to each player and
start at £29.70 for 90 days.
oktav.com
The Paloma O’Shea Santander
International Piano
Competition has received over
300 applications for its 20th
edition. The candidates from 46
nationalities include particularly
strong representation from Asia
Cecino was awarded the first
prize of £10,000 by an international
jury that included Alexey Lebedev
and Piers Lane plus RNCM head
of keyboard studies Graham Scott.
All participants not shortlisted for
the final were invited to take part
in a public masterclass led by a
jury member.
The biennial competition
was inaugurated in 2008 thanks
to a bequest from the late
and Russia. A shortlist of 20
pianists identified via live pre-
selection rounds will be invited to
compete in Spain between 25 July
and 5 August 2022. Jurors include
the leading piano pedagogue Rena
Shereshevskaya, British pianist
Barry Douglas and Romanian
conductor Péter Csaba. The
biennial competition was founded
in 1972 by the Spanish pianist and
philanthropist Paloma O’Shea.
santanderpianocompetition.com
The UK’s Birmingham
International Piano Competition
James Mottram, a lecturer in
politics and history at Salford
University. Mottram wanted
to see an international piano
competition staged in Manchester
to celebrate the music of his
favourite composers and provide
a platform for the next generation
of talented pianists. Yamaha has
supported the competition since
its inception.
rncm.ac.uk/jmipc-info
YAMAHA MUSIC
has recently relocated to the Royal
Birmingham Conservatoire. The
move marks the beginning of a
new chapter in the history of the
competition, which was founded
in 1979. Dr Shirley Thompson,
interim principal of Royal
Birmingham Conservatoire said,
‘We are extremely proud to be
the competition’s new custodian
and are committed to ensuring
that it goes from strength to
strength.’ The next BIPC is set to
take place between 23 June and
3 July 2022.
bipcomp.co.uk
www.saffronhall.com or 0845 548 7650
(7p per minute + access charge)

Sun 10 Apr,
7pm
Sun 20 Mar,
3pm
London
Sun 3 Apr, Philharmonic
Pierre-
Alim
3pm
Orchestra with
Laurent Mitsuko
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 ONE TO WATCH
An open mind
Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition 2021, used
lockdown to prepare himself mentally for the challenges ahead, says Colin Clarke
T
he Chopin Competition in Warsaw boasts a
string of keyboard immortals as its laureates,
starting with Oborin (1927), through Pollini
(1960), Argerich (1965) and Zimerman (1975). In
2021, out of 87 pianists from 18 countries, Bruce Xiaoyu
Liu took the crown.
The 18th Chopin Competition was twice postponed due
to the pandemic – Liu’s response is perhaps somewhat
surprising: ‘Corona actually helped me to prepare for this
competition. It’s a hard challenge to keep the music fresh.
My way was to play something else. I didn’t play Chopin
for a long time after I knew it was postponed.’ In addition,
Liu discovered the benefits of recording himself at home,
‘something I didn’t do before. Most of the time you think
you play like trash. But it really helped me because I was
able to feel the weaknesses others had told me about, but
which I didn’t believe. Sometimes it’s good to get out of
your comfort zone. You adapt to a new way, and after that
you realise you’re on a different level.’
Lockdown also helped Liu’s mindset. ‘Since the pandemic,
I’ve been more peaceful. I read books about Chopin, his
letters, and also had time to really take in details in the
scores. I think all these went together healthily.’
Freshness and calmness both come across in Liu’s
competition performances featured on his debut album
10 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
WOJCIECH GRZEDZINSKI
for Deutsche Grammophon. Chiming nicely with this is
Liu’s inclusion of some lesser-known Chopin: the Rondo
à la mazur, plus a delicious performance of the ‘Là ci
darem’ Variations. I wonder if we can expect more off-piste
offerings? ‘Absolutely. Even in other repertoire, it’s the
direction I like. For example, I play the Barber Piano Sonata
and like Kapustin. In popular composers, I often try to
choose the less-heard pieces.’ As he puts it, there are ‘a lot of
diamond and gold melodies that are not discovered’.
For his performances in Warsaw Liu opted for a Fazioli,
the piano of choice for the likes of Hewitt and Demidenko.
‘From the first round, we had five pianos to choose from.
When I picked Fazioli it was a very unexpected and risky
choice because the action and control are very different
from my habit. I was really touched by this particular piano.
Its jeu perlé sonority is very noble and charming. I used it in
all rounds, and it just worked out.’ To hear that jeu perlé, try
the coda of the Mozart Variations, and for the singing tone,
the Nocturne Op 27/1 from the competition’s first round.
Liu started playing around eight, which some might
construe as rather late. ‘It was nothing serious, like on an
electronic keyboard, a hobby. Maybe I’d play 10 minutes
per day. I started seriously aged 10 or 11 when I switched
to a real piano with 88 keys.’ There are no musicians in
Liu’s family to precede him, but there was always the
 ONE TO WATCH

love of classical music. ‘If I had musicians in the family, I

probably wouldn’t want to be a pianist. I’d rather discover
‘I didn’t grow up in one specific culture,
something new than pursue things I see my parents doing.’
Liu’s background is decidedly international. He was
so I’m open to new things’
born in Paris of Chinese parents. The family emigrated to
Montreal when Liu was 11. ‘My dad probably just wanted It is no surprise to learn that Liu consults Urtext editions
to discover some new place. In a way, it helped me: this and that he has a real respect for players from the Golden
kind of international citizen background gave me a more Age (‘a great way to get inspired’). He mentions Cortot,
open-minded way of thinking. I didn’t grow up in one Samson, François, and Michelangeli. Now the competition
specific culture, so I’m open to new things. And that helps is done, what next? ‘My only dream was to come home and
to understand different composers.’ to finally rest a bit. But the night after I won, they gave me
He studied at the Montreal Conservatory with Richard a fully packed schedule until February.’ Recordings? ‘I have
Raymond, and then with Ðă․ng Thái Son. ‘Before Richard, a lot of plans, but no clear ideas. I’m eager for something
my education was very good, but more for creating a other than Chopin, but related, like French music maybe.
passion for music. With Richard, we started to build It’s something I have always wanted to do.’ IP
knowledge about piano playing, how to pay attention to
the score, what the signs mean and what’s behind it. And
of course technique. With Ðă․ng, it’s more like quitting my
teenage years, because that’s the time you start building
your personality as a person and in the music. At a certain
point you have to create your own direction, and Ðă․ng
really helped me. Music reflects your own personality, Bruce Liu’s debut album of recordings from the
so first you have to find out who you are. That in turn 18th International Chopin Piano Competition
influences your chosen repertoire. Ðă․ng found the best is available from Deutsche Grammophon
of me. He’s a bit like a family member – we talk about (DG 4861555)
life problems.’

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Silence is golden
Pianists are not always the most enthusiastic supporters of their colleagues’
performances. Benjamin Ivry thinks they would do well to keep their own counsel
S
ergei Rachmaninov, once asked by a
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter why
he avoided interviews, replied that he
was ‘brought up never to lie. But I cannot
tell the truth’. Such wariness is a good rule
for pianists who might be tempted to make
pronouncements about their colleagues’
performances.
After all, pianism has long been coloured
by competitive keyboard showdowns,
historically used to whet punters’ ticket-
buying appetites by highlighting rivalries
among virtuosi such as Chopin, Liszt and
Thalberg. Beethoven’s biographer Ferdinand
Ries recounted one such duel between his
subject and the pianist Daniel Gottlieb
Steibelt, unsurprisingly won by Ludwig.
Still, amid such jousts, a certain restraint
was expected in polite society. When the
Irish pianist John Field first heard the young
Liszt play, he inquired ironically, ‘Does
he bite?’ Field’s question, directed to the
assembled public, was reportedly ill-received.
Another precedent can be found in the
long-standing didactic tradition of mentors,
like the ferocious Isabelle Vengerova, who
offered excoriating critiques of her students’
playing. This amounted to a world where
castigation was the norm, rather than
the exception, which may have taught
pianists the value of reticence about living
contemporaries. After all, one might share
the same management one day, or have
other unforeseen professional affiliations.
Notable exceptions included the
performer Moriz Rosenthal, of whom the
Leschetizky pupil Arthur Shattuck said, ‘In
all the 30 years I knew him, I never heard
[Rosenthal] say a kind or fair word of any
of his fellow artists.’ Indeed, Rosenthal
would march backstage after recitals
and deliberately taunt colleagues, as he
did after one performance by Emil von
12 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
IN BLACK AND WHITE
Ferocious: Isabelle Vengerova (1877-1956)
Sauer in Vienna, telling the pianist: ‘Well,
Emil, things don’t go quite as well as they
formerly did.’
As with Rosenthal, Vladimir Horowitz’s
jibes about pianists may have been
motivated by the emotional vulnerabilities
that hampered his own career. In 1987,
Horowitz told his co-author on an abortive
memoir project that Vladimir Ashkenazy
was ‘good once, not now’. Horowitz added
that a recording by Ashkenazy and André
Previn of the two Rachmaninov Suites for
Two Pianos was a ‘caricature, absolutely a
caricature, terrible’.
Some of the venom might have been due
to older pianists feeling threatened by the
rise of a new generation. The much-beloved,
but sometimes snappish, near-centenarian
Mieczysław Horszowski was one example.
An ear-witness reports that once, when
informed that prospective ticket buyers were
lining the streets to attend a Manhattan
recital by the up-and-coming Murray
Perahia, Horszowski blurted out: ‘The fools!’
Mostly, putdowns have only fleetingly
caused ill feeling as airborne wigging tends to
be evanescent. Not so pianists who choose to
express themselves in print, an ever-growing
temptation in an age of blogs. Increasingly,
keyboard artists apparently feel they can, and
should, replace mere critics. The late Zoltán
Kocsis made a point of slating fellow pianists
with gusto in reviews written for Hungarian
arts periodicals, perhaps emboldened by the
unlikelihood that foreigners would be able to
read his attacks.
A more inspiring and well-motivated case
of writing critiques of colleagues was the
Silesia-born Austrian pianist and composer
Viktor Ullmann. A newly published
collection of Ullmann’s music reviews
from Terezín concentration camp shows
a musician striving to maintain standards
even under dire conditions. Despite the
fact that he and most of the pianists he
wrote about would soon be murdered at
Auschwitz, Ullmann considered Terezín a
‘school of form’.
Ullmann chided Karel Taube, a Busoni
pupil, for not having ‘devoted himself from
the beginning and exclusively to the piano
and the study of art music. [Taube] was
born, so to speak, with the hands of a pianist
and has temperament enough for two
(sometimes a little too much)’. Still another
pianist, Renée Gärtner-Geiringer, was
dismissed as ‘a harpsichordist’ by Ullmann.
Of the pianist-critics who followed
Ullmann’s example under less traumatic
conditions, few attained the enlightenment
of Arthur Loesser, who possessed a rare
cultural understanding that made his
judgments noteworthy. Until other pianists
of Loesser- or Ullmann-level critical acumen
appear, silence is golden should remain
the rule when reacting to other pianists’
renditions. IP
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 The
Ill-Tempered
Clavier
So you want to be a concert pianist?
Think again, says Charivari

W
ho would want to start out on
a career as a concert pianist in
2022? It’s not as if there aren’t
enough pianists already. Unlike lorry drivers
and nurses, the public are not crying out for
more. And of those who have been toiling in
that particular vineyard for any length of time,
how many have been forced to find alternative
employment in the past (nearly) two years
just to keep body and soul together? How
many have seen their dreams shattered purely
by the economic battering of the pandemic
and the global closure of their workplaces
– the concert halls of the world – only now
hesitantly recovering?
Imagine you are a young pianist, still in your
teens, stunningly talented (so you have been
assured by family, friends and teachers), a wide
and varied repertoire in your fingers ready to
play at the drop of a hat, confident that you
have what it takes to make an international
career – a pedigree, thoroughbred racehorse,
in fact, straining to fly out of the starting box…
but there’s no race course in front of you.
What do you do? How do you cope mentally?
How soon do you give up in frustration?
These questions raised themselves when,
just out of idle interest, I went through all
the piano reviews published over the past
year by Gramophone and International Piano.
Concerto, chamber, vocal and solo. Dozens
and dozens of pianists in all (I gave up
counting after four issues). I estimate that
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

between 80 and 90 per cent of the pianists

Living the dream: Van Cliburn is greeted by an were unknown to me (which, of course, may
ecstatic American public following his victory at merely betoken a greater degree of ignorance
the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition on my part than I have previously conferred
on myself). And these were just the ones

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who had, nevertheless, reached the dizzying
heights of appearing on an actual recording.
Think of the hordes struggling to do just that –
or even find an agent.
It was a reminder that only a very small
percentage of pianists ever ‘make it’ to the
sunlit uplands of limos and Rolex watches,
who get the attention of the media, maintain
a high public profile and are known to critics
and punters alike. We are talking Argerich,
Kissin, Lang Lang and Yuja Wang at the
topmost level. As for Hough, Volodos, Pollini,
Andsnes, Thibaudet, Hamelin, Grimaud,
Uchida, Schiff and Zimerman, most of our
readers could hopefully pick any one of them
out in an identity parade.
I have often noticed the similarities in
many (but not all) respects between the
acting profession and the world of the concert
pianist. There seems to be a small coterie
of big-name actors who are always on our
screens (large and small) slipping seamlessly
from one drama series to another, supported
by a cast of actors of whom one has neither
heard nor seen before. To break into that small
www.international-piano.com
‘Is it responsible to
teach people who want
to fulfil the very same
dreams you once had?’
clique and thus become a highly paid and
welcome visitor to the chat show sofas, and to
willingly forego any privacy in public places, is
the ambition of every student leaving drama
college. The fact is that of all those who do so
to embark on their acting career, 50 per cent
give up in the first year. Of that remaining 50
per cent, another 50 per cent drop out after
the second year. The median earnings of an
actor in the UK (of all ages and experience)
is £23,270.
So it is with pianists: the big names are in
demand all the time. Below the salt is the
‘supporting cast’ of those struggling to get
more than 20 gigs a year. Teaching is the
fallback position. But is it responsible to offer
yourself as a teacher to those who are looking
International Piano January/February 2022
THE ILL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
to fulfil the very same dreams you once had?
By the law of averages, most of your pupils,
despite their optimism, dedication and talent,
will not have a snowball’s chance in hell in
such a cut-throat profession.
And it is not just your abilities as a dextrous,
sensitive, profound keyboard musician that
will ensure a successful career. Stage charisma
helps. You must also have a certain social
grace about you (at least when starting out)
that will prompt people to invite you back.
Winning a competition isn’t enough. Look
at the number of people who have won (or
been well-placed) in competitions, or who
might play a fantastic debut but who, after
that, don’t know what to do. There’s no point
having a Ferrari if you don’t know how to
drive. You must also certainly have Lady Luck
on your side.
No, if one were starting out today as a
pianist one would either need a private
income or a second skillset to survive.
Otherwise, there’s a very good chance one
might end up being a columnist for a music
magazine. IP
15
COVER FEATURE

All in
the mind
Can you practise difficult passages
sitting in an armchair – or learn
concertos lying in bed? Pianist and
composer Nicolas Namoradze,
winner of the Honens Competition
in 2018, has some revolutionary
ideas that are as surprising as his
playing, says Michael Church

W
igmore debuts often surprise, but I
witnessed Nicolas Namoradze’s debut
with mounting astonishment. He suffused
Scriabin’s Black Mass Sonata with an
opalescent glow and gave an exultant performance of Bach’s
Sixth Partita – then really took off. His riveting account of a
series of studies by York Bowen offered a fascinating blend of
Romanticism and Modernist experimentation, each brought
out like a rabbit from a conjuror’s hat. He then segued into
some dazzling studies of his own, followed by five brilliant
Scriabin encores delivered with a seraphic smile. Through a
slightly-open door we could see him literally jumping up and
down with excitement in the backstage moments between
returning to the stage and astonishing us some more.
Born in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in 1992, but
brought up in Budapest, then Chicago, then Budapest
again – before landing up at New York’s Juilliard School
– he got the best possible musical grounding thanks to
keyboard tutelage from Zoltán Kocsis and Emanuel Ax,
plus compositional tutelage from John Corigliano. He
sailed through the ranks to win the Honens Competition
in 2018. Until Covid struck, he was performing all over
the world, and his York Bowen album, with its rarely
performed repertoire, has received lavish critical praise.

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ANOUSH ABRAR
Speaking on Skype from his parental home in Berlin,
Namoradze explains how his musical life began: transfixed
by Verdi while he sat in his highchair. He started playing
the piano at seven, having realised that that was the
instrument which the great composers played, but at that
point he was more interested in building complex Lego
structures than in pianism. Even then, however, he was
writing his own music: ‘It seemed to me that composing
and performing were two sides of the same coin – it
seemed natural to do both.’ From that early age until his
entry to the Juilliard he did no more composition, but he
thinks that in the intervening period his compositional
www.international-piano.com
COVER FEATURE
voice was retaining its integrity: ‘It was virtually the same
in my twenties as the one I used at seven.’
He is highly articulate, and his English is flawless; he
is also a native speaker in Hungarian and Georgian, and
stresses that Georgia’s polyphonic folk music is one of the
big influences on his own compositions. When I suggest
that Ligeti seems to be another influence, he agrees,
though he only became aware of that composer on the
day his tutor György Kurtág mentioned Ligeti was dying.
After Ligeti’s death, Namoradze started investigating
his music, focusing initially on the third book of etudes
and exploring a precise question: ‘What are the features of
a particular texture that makes us feel it is either tonally
grounded or not? Ligeti himself described it as neither
tonal nor atonal, but occupying a middle ground between
the two.’ And that, Namoradze says, is why the music
works – the juxtaposition of areas that are grounded with
areas that are disorientating, conveying the uncanny
feeling of a tonally grey area, a tonal nowhere. ‘What I’m
asking is, is there a number we can put to how stable, or
atonal, a particular passage is? This is all about our sense
of perception, about how as listeners we perceive stability.’
He devised some mathematical models to analyse
the question: ‘I created a set of graphs – which look like
seismograms – to track the dramatic narrative of each
piece. Mathematically this process demands a lot of
statistical heavy lifting: I had to put the computer through
many millions of calculations. It’s like analysing a painting
for patches of colour and gradation.’ Moreover, he adds,
the system he has created can also be used for other
music, such as Chopin’s Etudes.
But this piece of research, fundamental though it is,
only scratches the surface for this deep thinker about the
applicability to music of new findings in neuroscience.
What fascinates Namoradze is neuroplasticity, ‘the idea
that the brain is much more flexible than we think it is’. And
during the two-year retreat he has allowed himself after
winning the Honens, that is what he has been investigating.
He studied how such thinking has helped in sports
psychology, which is way ahead of music in this respect.
How might he apply this concept to piano practice, I
ask. ‘One important principle – I would say an earth-
shatteringly important one – is the fact that the brain can’t
easily distinguish between what we are actually doing,
and what we imagine we are doing.’ This leads us, says
Namoradze, to consider the mental practice which many
pianists do away from the keyboard, ‘and to the fact that
with difficult things, the brain can trick us into believing we
can actually do them before we physically can. Thus, with
a difficult passage, rather than just hammering it out for
hours, I can simply imagine the end-product very vividly.’
For this we have to develop a ‘kinaesthetic visual
imagination’ which can allow us to imagine exactly what
it feels like to execute the passage perfectly: ‘To rewire
the brain, and make us feel it is something we can do –
even though we haven’t physically done it yet. And this
makes the practice process much faster.’ He calls this
‘imagineering – engineered imagining’.
International Piano January/February 2022 17
COVER FEATURE

MONIQUE DE ST CROIX
Can he give an example? ‘OK, take Brahms Two, and the
famous jumps in the opening cadenza before the orchestra
enters, with the hands leaping across the keyboard. There’s
a kinaesthetic response you get when you train your brain
well. And if in some way you were completely deafened
– if there were some contraption on your head which
prevented you hearing – you could know, from your kinetic
response, if you were hitting the wrong notes, or hitting the
right ones. You can learn what it feels like to hit those notes
correctly, and what it feels like to hit wrong ones. I can sit
in my armchair, close my eyes, visualise the piano keyboard
and see it from a bird’s-eye view, and then I can practise
that passage, seeing and hearing myself play it the way I
want to – and feeling it in my fingers.’
Namoradze admits that if we’re not accustomed to it,
this is not an easy thing to do, but says he has now got
to the point where in bed he can imagine himself playing
something ‘when I’m not warmed up. My forearms even
start to feel sore, because my brain is firing electrical
signals into them, thinking that I’m actually playing. And
indeed if I were to play in reality, without having warmed
up, my forearms would indeed become sore. It’s a very
strange phenomenon that my body thinks it’s physically
doing what I’m only doing in my head.’ This helps greatly
when he has to learn concertos fast. ‘When I do this, I am
much further ahead with a piece than I would have been
without it, and had been merely doing it at the piano.’
This sounds both outlandish and revolutionary. Can it
be taught? ‘Yes, I’ve given workshops – and I am my own
guinea pig. There’s a constant feedback loop between
mind and fingers.’ This, he believes, is a new frontier. He
has not written up this experiment yet, but he certainly
should. He wants to give it more academic grounding
‘Imagined performance can become before going public, so this interview must count as a
sneak preview.
as “real” as reality’ Back on more recognisable terra firma, we talk about
recordings. The idea of a York Bowen CD arose out of the
NEDA NAVAEE

recording contract with Hyperion, which was part of his

prize for winning the Honens. ‘I’ve always liked rare music,

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MONIQUE DE ST CROIX
and I like to champion stuff which is off the beaten track,
like the Godowsky-Chopin studies.’ He points out that
Bowen’s Fragments from Hans Andersen had not previously
been recorded, and that his 12 Studies for Piano draw on
Chopin, Rachmaninov, Debussy and Scriabin, and look
forward to Ligeti.
He also likes the fact that Hyperion refuses to have
anything to do with Spotify – ‘which, like YouTube,
doesn’t encourage people to pay for music as they did
before. Spotify may allow musicians to spread the word
about their recordings more than they would otherwise,
but it damages the industry on which they depend. But
new business models like Idagio are now emerging for
musicians. The new interest in high-quality audio is
helping too. And Spotify’s sound quality is no match even
for CD sound quality, let alone for that of LPs with their
uncompressed, uncondensed warmth of sound.’
His latest album – Arabesque, out on the Steinway &
Sons label in January – is a typically intriguing venture,
provocatively marrying music by Schumann with music
by Namoradze. Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe, Arabeske
Op 18 and Humoreske Op 20 are interspersed with three
Etudes by Namoradze and an Arabesque of his own
devising. All this is provocative, because the Namoradze
pieces are out on the far frontier of avantgardism, yet
their juxtapositions with high-Romantic music work
surprisingly comfortably.
‘The structure of the recital is itself reminiscent of an
arabesque-like form,’ he says, ‘interleaving Schumann’s
work with my own. The opening sunrise of Schumann’s
“Songs of Dawn” is followed by a pair of arabesques,
Schumann’s iconic work exerting an influence on aspects
of the formal structure of my piece of the same name. Two
considerably more virtuosic and extraverted selections
complete the programme: Schumann’s monumental
Humoreske, followed by three of my piano studies.’
The impressionism of Gesänge der Frühe was described
by Schumann as ‘more expressions of feeling than of
painting’. As Namoradze points out, the sparse antiphony
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COVER FEATURE
of the opening movement is at odds with its quietly Left to right:
jarring dissonances, being a simultaneous glance at the Namoradze gives his
past and future that is at the heart of Schumann’s late winning performance
style. There is a grave tenderness in Namoradze’s playing of Brahms’ Second
of the opening piece, while in the second he captures Concerto at the 2018
Schumann’s delicate fancifulness. The song-like texture Honens Competition;
of the fourth piece, and the chorale-like opening of the Recording York Bowen
fifth, are beautifully rendered. In Schumann’s Arabeske he for Hyperion
captures its open-hearted charm.
Namoradze’s own Arabesque is based on ornate,
spiralling and interlacing patterns. As he points out,
the pianist plays intertwined figurations where the
individual strands can only be distinguished by dynamic
contracts between the hands: ‘A study in gentle changes
of colour and sonority, the shifts between various textures
occurring gradually, in a manner reminiscent of Escher’s
Metamorphosis prints.’ If all that sounds dauntingly
analytical, the reality, as Namoradze plays it, is ravishingly
beautiful: the opening sounds like crystal chimes in a
luminous landscape. The piece seems to carry on where
Ligeti left off, but at the same time it harks back to
simpler, more down-home times.
Namoradze’s doctoral dissertation, which is about to be
published by Springer, is entitled Ligeti’s Macroharmonies.
Using Ligeti as a case study in musical perception, this
book will flesh out in detail Namoradze’s thoughts about
stability and instability, and about the grey area between
tonality and atonality. He has also just created a website
(mindfulness.idag.io), ‘dealing with the difference between
performing in the mind, and performing in reality, and
showing how the imagined performance can become as
“real” as reality. The core of it is two mini apps. One will be
for musicians, drawing on the world of sports psychology
– it will be like having your own performance coach in
your pocket’. The other app will be for listeners, but one
has to wonder how many non-specialists will have the
stamina to follow where Namoradze’s arcane ideas seek to
lead them.
Namoradze’s next London performance will be of
Stravinsky’s Capriccio for piano and orchestra at the Royal
Festival Hall on 18 February, with the Budapest Festival
Orchestra under Iván Fischer’s direction. With so many
talents and interests it is impossible to predict what this
remarkable young man will go on to do: all we can be sure
of is that it will be both original and unexpected. So watch
this space. IP
Nicolas Namoradze’s Arabesque is released by
Steinway & Sons on 7 January 2022
(STNS 30112). nicolasnamoradze.com
International Piano January/February 2022 19
76e CONCOURS DE GENÈVE
INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION
22  OCT–3  NOV 2022
Piano & Composition

APPLICATION DEADLINE
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M
any years ago my partner’s sister-in-law,
a charming lady, exclaimed in wonder
on hearing I was a pianist. ‘Does he play
Chopin?’ she asked, before continuing
ecstatically, ‘Chopin makes me think of moonlight
and candles.’ Such a quaint if endearing view is still
surprisingly current. Chopin, the only great composer
who wrote almost exclusively for the piano, without the
ballast of operas and symphonies, is seen as a lightweight,
soothing alternative to more strenuous listening.
Yet, as Beatrice Rana reminded us in the note for her
recent Chopin album, few composers could be more
challenging or unsettling. He is not a composer for timid
or conservative souls.
Nowhere can this be heard more clearly than in
Sony’s new 10-CD tribute to Fou Ts’ong. Vivid, volatile,
confrontational, edgy and dictatorial (though with the
voice of a subtle and haunting poet when the mood took
him), Fou leaves you lost in awe and amazement, even
when startled and provoked by his uncompromising
stance. There are absolutely no half measures in this
daunting and remarkable reissue: rarely has Chopin
sounded more contemporary.
Chopin’s prophetic audacity was idealised by Schumann
and Liszt but attracted scorn from less far-seeing critics.
‘As music, I abhor it,’ wrote Mendelssohn about the finale
www.international-piano.com
IN RETROSPECT
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
Fierce
conviction
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
Bryce Morrison revels in the intense,
highly individual recordings of Chopin’s
music by Chinese-born pianist Fou Ts’ong
of the B-flat minor Sonata. Berlin’s critic Ludwig Rellstab
implored ‘Mr Chopin to return to nature’, complaining
that ‘where [John] Field smiles, Chopin makes a grinning
grimace; where Field sighs, Chopin groans; where Field
shrugs his shoulders, Chopin arches his back like a cat;
where Field puts some seasoning into the food, Chopin
empties a handful of cayenne pepper…’. For the early
Chopin scholar, Frederick Niecks, Chopin’s Polonaise-
Fantasie was altogether too much: ‘on account of its
psychological content [it] stands outside the sphere of
art’. Clearly, Chopin gave many people cause for alarm, his
lack of moderation making him a suitable denizen for the
world of Mario Praz’s The Romantic Agony.
In Fou Ts’ong we find a pianist who naturally rather
than self-consciously recreates such inner torment and
revolutionary upheaval. Not surprisingly, the Waltzes,
Impromptus and Rondos were absent from his repertoire:
he saw them as expressing a lesser side of Chopin’s genius,
a salon alternative to greater seriousness of purpose.
The Polonaises and Scherzos are a more surprising and
regrettable omission from his recorded legacy.
Fou first came to prominence at Warsaw’s 1955 Chopin
Competition where he was placed third. First prize
went to Adam Harasiewicz, second prize to Vladimir
Ashkenazy. Fou was particularly commended for his
performances of the Mazurkas, the most subtle and Fou Ts’ong (1934-2020)
International Piano January/February 2022 21
 IN RETROSPECT
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
Fou was a single-minded genius whose
interpretations of Chopin reflected tragic
experiences in his own life
richly comprehensive of all Chopin’s major genres – for
many his confessional diary. The jury was surprised by
an inwardness and empathy it considered the exclusive
property of pianists of Slavic background. It was
soon after this occasion that Fou’s teacher, Zbigniew
Drzewiecki, made a deeply perceptive comment: ‘You are
a very special case. You are individual. You have your own
ideas and I don’t really want you to come to lessons that
Fou’s performances of often. I am only here to guide you when you go out of your
Chopin leave you lost in way, to ensure that you keep your individual approach to
awe and amazement music.’ Fou went on to fulfil his teacher’s prophecy with
22 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
performances of Chopin even more revelatory than either
Harasiewicz’s or Ashkenazy’s.
There are three discs devoted to the Mazurkas with
extras galore (60 or so rather than the once customary 52).
Here, a more familiar grace and style is swept dramatically
aside. Even the more relatively genial or joyous numbers
emerge with a troubled edge. Codas in particular, so
often disconsolate rather than comforting, find Fou at his
most haunting and persuasive. He evokes the wide Polish
landscape in Op 56/1 and is heart-stopping in the final
desolation and abrupt fade-out of Op 22/3. He is irritable
and restless in Op 17/3 (Chopin’s nagging rather than
entreating child) and just when you have decided his view
is one-sided, he makes you wonder when you have heard
a more measured or poetic response to the little A minor
Mazurka Op 68/2.
How readily and significantly Fou responds to Chopin’s
‘appassionata, il piu forte possible’ and ‘presto con fuoco’
directions in the First Ballade. Indeed such violent
demands come to mind in many pages of his Chopin.
This is never truer than in the B-flat minor Sonata, which
is given in a manner sure to offend those who like their
Chopin on the straight and narrow. More traditional and
conservative listeners should be shown a warning light.
Unshakeable in his fierce conviction, Fou shouts Chopin’s
darkest masterpiece to the heavens, jolting his listeners
out of easy acquiescence. His unforgettable balm in the
Funeral March’s central benediction may be something
to wonder at, but it is erased in his finale, a whirling sotto
voce menace to chill the blood.
In the Etudes and Preludes you will be reminded of
Fou’s transcendental and wholly personal technique.
Rather than wooing the listener with golden and
ravishing tone, he stuns you with his imperious
command. Hear him in Chopin’s toccata-like Etude
Op 10/7, where his speed and agility offer a strong and
musically persuasive alternative to Ignaz Friedman’s
legendary recording. For once you hear every note in
the savage glitter of the F-sharp minor Prelude No 8. By
contrast, Fou is haunting and elegiac in the outwardly
simple and direct chording of No 20 in C minor. He is no
less sympathetic to the isolated Op 45 C-sharp minor
Prelude with its far-reaching bitter-sweet prophecy of
late autumnal Brahms and again, not surprisingly to its
operatic and painfully declamatory close.
Then there are the Nocturnes, predictably from
Fou never inhabiting a place of night-time peace
and tranquillity, but of sudden violence bordering on
nightmare. There is always an electrifying sense to his
playing, as if a high-voltage current is passing through it.
Even from Horowitz you won’t hear a darker performance
of the C-sharp minor Nocturne Op 27/1 (the one that
prompted James Huneker to imagine a corpse washed up
on the shore of a moonlit Venetian lagoon). Fou is true to
the ‘allegretto’ and ‘scherzando’ markings at the start of
the B major Nocturne Op 9/3, but his agitation is apt and
never a parody of those instructions.
In individual works Fou is no less stimulating, no less

aware of potential unease. His fitful opening descent in
the Barcarolle foreshadows a performance the opposite
of, say, Lipatti’s patrician manner and sheen. It also
highlights the vexed question of tempo rubato in Chopin.
Fou once telephoned me after the close of his class at
one of the London colleges asking me if I thought it was
possible to teach tempo rubato. I remember replying that
even if it was unteachable you could perhaps imply and
insinuate, suggesting the heartbeat or natural breathing
of the music. Yet Fou’s conception of rubato is rarely an
easy give-and-take. The sudden pull back and release at
the start of the E major Etude Op 10/3 is more a lurch or
convulsion than a subtly graded progression, once more
the reverse of, say, Rubinstein’s beguiling urbanity.
Fou was a single-minded genius whose interpretations
of Chopin reflected tragic experiences in his own life.
His parents were university teachers and opponents
of the Chinese regime who became victims of the
Cultural Revolution. Harassed and humiliated, they
both eventually committed suicide. Later, Fou’s marriage
to Yehudi Menuhin’s daughter Zamira (described as a
marriage into musical royalty) ended in divorce and
blighted his career. Perhaps such issues partly explain
Fou’s cruelly dismissive teaching style. I once attended a
masterclass in which his stream of sarcasm and contempt
directed at young and inexperienced students, whether
www.international-piano.com
IN RETROSPECT
their playing was worthy or otherwise, distressed everyone
present. Clearly there were issues, and even if they were
understandable they were none the less regrettable.
Sony’s offering is a musical landmark, prompting you
to think again about music you thought you knew well. It
is not so much a case of raising the bar in Chopin playing
as radically altering one’s perception and expectations.
The sound is as alive and immediate as the performances
and you will surely be left shaken and bemused by such
individuality, fervour and intensity. To conclude, try the F
minor Mazurka Op 68/4, Chopin’s final offering, given by
Fou with a painful sense that the composer’s early death
cut short his seemingly endless stream of tormented
masterpieces. As my late lamented colleague Joan Chissell
would have put it, ‘Fou is always Fou’ – an artist as
unmistakable as he was unforgettable. IP
Fou Ts’ong plays Chopin
includes full sets of the
Ballades, Nocturnes,
Etudes, Preludes and
Mazurkas. The 10 discs
feature original LP sleeves
and labels
(Sony 19439913092)
International Piano January/February 2022 23
 ARTIST FOCUS
Back to nature
Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi has long invoked the natural world in his music. His latest
album, Underwater, composed during the pandemic, develops the theme. As he prepares
to tour the UK in March, he talks to Claire Jackson
T
he pianist prepares to play, then stops. There’s
a soft thud in the distance as a chunk of ice
falls into the water. ‘Wow,’ he mutters. Wow is
right: the piano is surrounded by a wilderness
of snowy peaks and grey waters. A seabird calls into the
frozen landscape and a floe drifts by the makeshift stage.
The logistics of getting a Steinway on to an iceberg-
styled wooden platform alongside the Wahlenbergbreen
glacier in Svalbard, Norway, made this one of the most
unusual and complex piano moves in history. The project
was organised by Greenpeace, as part of a campaign
to raise awareness about the climate crisis. And who
better to engage attention than a pianist whose music is
streamed over a million times a day? As Ludovico Einaudi
concludes his performance, text appears on screen: ‘Raise
your voice to save the Arctic.’
The film release coincided with a meeting of the OSPAR
Commission, a collaboration between 16 governments
to protect the marine environment of the North-East
Atlantic. A few years later, in the wake of the 2021 United
24 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
PEDRO ARMESTRE
Nations Climate Change Conference dubbed COP26,
Einaudi is once again hoping that music can play a role
in environmental activism. ‘Like most people I am very
concerned about the environment,’ he says, ‘In my Italian
concerts there will screenings of documentary films from
the series Climate Space (climatespace.it). It’s a way of
encouraging discussion. I’m not a scientist or a politician,
but I can keep the conversation going.’
Many of Einaudi’s pieces have titles that connect them
with the natural world. There are references to trees and
orbits (In A Time Lapse), mountains and wind (Elements),
snow and birds (Nightbook). In 2019, the pianist-composer
produced Seven Days Walking – seven volumes of music,
released in instalments over the course of seven months
– inspired by hiking in the Alps. ‘Nature is constantly
surprising me,’ reflects Einaudi. ‘With nature you feel the
sense of being small, among richer things. Nature has a
supernatural power and complexity – and at the same
time a simplicity. Obviously there is a long history of
musicians who have felt this way.’ His latest album – the

first entirely solo release for 20 years – follows a similar
format, with pieces titled ‘Flora’, ‘Natural Light’ and
‘Wind Song’.
Underwater was composed during the pandemic,
which partly accounts for Einaudi’s return to solo music,
having worked with ensembles such as the Amsterdam
Sinfonietta and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in recent
years. (The latter commissioned and premiered his piano
concerto Domino in 2016.) Faced with the uncertainty and
unease of 2020, the pianist channelled efforts into a more
intimate album. ‘I was writing every day – some days were
better than others – and after the music came, I didn’t
touch it so much,’ he remembers. ‘When I started refining
it, it did not improve. The first idea was the best, so in
the end I kept the spirit of the original music.’ Einaudi
also experimented with prepared piano timbres, adding
additional felt to the hammers. This is a fashionable
technique among so-called post-classical pianist-
composers, but it is the first time the Italian pianist has
explored such sounds.
‘I worked for a long time to get the right character from
the piano,’ he says. ‘It’s technically a prepared piano. I
mean, every time you make a record the piano is prepared
in some way as pianists always work with a technician
to get the sound they want. I wanted a very warm sound.
Together with my tuner we tried different solutions. We
covered every hammer with an extra layer of felt. It was a
long process.’
Einaudi is speaking to me via Zoom in between concert
days. He has just returned from a series of dates in Finland
and is about to start a Milan residency. In March he will
DUET POSTSCRIPTUM
www.international-piano.com
ARTIST FOCUS
venture to the UK, playing with an ensemble at London’s
Eventim Apollo (21-23 March) followed by two solo
concerts linked to Underwater at the Alexandra Palace
Theatre (26-27 March). There is also a performance at
Manchester’s O2 Apollo on 24 March, a date rescheduled
from a previous tour which was cancelled during
the pandemic.
Listening to Underwater it is difficult to imagine how
this music will translate to a large hall. Einaudi agrees it
will be a challenge. ‘There are no gestures to this music,
it’s like reading some lines from a poem,’ he says. ‘I need
to read in a calm and concentrated way to many, many
people – and let them feel that I am playing to one.’
A few pieces from the album – which Einaudi likens to
a traditional suite – were performed in Helsinki shortly
before our interview. How did the 3,500-odd audience
members respond? ‘They listened very carefully,’ he smiles.
They are not alone. Einaudi is now the world’s most-
streamed classical artist (which is how the industry
categorises him, for better or worse), and continues to
break records – In A Time Lapse (2013) became the first
classical release to sell more digital downloads than
physical copies. As a pianist-composer, Einaudi has
dozens of copycats who attempt, with varying degrees
of success, to develop a similar sound. His scores are
as anticipated as his recording releases and he has
inspired countless piano students in the early stages
of their study. But when it comes to critical acclaim,
the reviews are harsh. ‘The humdrum ordinariness and
straightforwardness is stupefying,’ wrote Philip Clark in
the Guardian of Einaudi’s Barbican 2019 residency. Indeed,
if it is technical mastery and complex harmonic structures
you are after, Underwater will fall short of expectation.
But taste is not binary: we can appreciate intellectually
demanding music while also finding beauty in simple
melodies. Indeed, for many listeners, Einaudi’s distinctive,
immediate style is comforting. It helps people who may be
struggling to feel pleasure or concentrate to connect with
life – fans reference how the music has helped with their
studies and mental health. Not all piano students want or
need to reach conservatoire level. Einaudi’s sheet music
often engages those who might not respond to other
styles. Einaudi himself is perfectly accepting of critics:
‘People don’t know where to place me and my work,’ he
says, ‘I just play music that reflects my inner emotional
expectation and desires.’ IP
Einaudi’s Underwater
will be released on
21 January 2022 Einaudi: ‘Nature has a
(Decca 3875462) supernatural power and
ludovicoeinaudi.com complexity – and at the
same time a simplicity’
International Piano January/February 2022 25
 PERSONAL TOUCH

Are you ready

for the future?
Austrian pianist Ingolf Wunder explains
how we have removed musicality from
classical music, and suggests ways to secure
the position of humans in a world full of
artificial intelligence

I
started my pianistic journey aged 14, and soon after,
I performed all of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes in
concert and at my entry exam for the University of
Vienna. From this earliest stage of music-making,
I never felt the need to engage in the social game of
pleasing everybody with platitudes and fake words in
order to benefit my own career. I hope this has given me a
personal integrity that allows me to point out things I find
wrong in the music world.
I was raised to treat music as a human creation with
a divine dimension – something much bigger than all of
us. Music is a constant that exists beyond human politics
or power games. While this view was quite normal in
the past, these days I find it is regarded with suspicion.
When I started to make an international career, I found
myself in a quandary as to whether to talk openly about
the ‘elephant in the room’ of the classical music scene. But
since drastic times call for drastic measures, I see it as my
duty to speak out.
Seen from a bird’s-eye view, classical music is becoming
Ingolf Wunder: ‘Music is shallower and more standardised. The trend began around
a constant that exists half a century ago, when music education started to go
beyond human politics in the wrong direction. We are now experiencing the
or power games’ results of this trend all around the world and we all feel
PAULINA WUNDER
it, promoters and artists alike. Some choose to ignore it.
Others are too busy making their daily bread to realise it.
But the facts are cruel, and quality overall is suffering.
It’s time to call it what it is – dumbing down – and
make people aware that change is needed. Only with
awareness can we switch direction. Such change might
find momentum in the fact that we live in an age of radical
and rapid transformation, fertile soil for reform.
From the outset it is worth acknowledging the following
statements, which are fundamental in our quest for
change: a) Musicians need to be musical – or else they
are not musicians; b) Artists need to engage audiences in
order to sustain their art.
These are the two vital pillars of music, but today they
are standing on shaky ground. And this is why there
are fewer real musicians in the world today. We have
unfortunately produced a generation of pianists who
resemble computers and robots – or as my wife calls
them, ‘self-playing pianos’: you switch them on and they
all sound the same. Speed and no mistakes have become
the absolute priorities, both in the education system
and in the music business. Marketing and non-music-
related factors are more important than the quality of
content. There is a vicious circle of supply and demand of

26 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


‘unmusical music’ in the market, with the result that real
musicality is not required anymore, because the majority
of people don’t know what musicality – natural phrasing,
expression, tone and dynamics – are really about.
As for audiences, in large parts of the world there
are shrinking numbers for classical music. Promoters
are unable to support themselves through ticket sales,
depending more and more on subsidies and sponsorship.
The financial strains are apparent throughout the
industry, whether musicians are aware of them or
not. The future doesn’t look too promising either. In
developed nations, the average concertgoer is quite old –
and no, I don’t buy the narrative that says ‘when today’s
youth turn 60, they will all miraculously start going to
classical concerts’. In the past, audiences for classical
music were on average younger. The main reason for
this audience aging process is that we have trouble
exciting young people about classical music. It’s not the
music’s fault. The way that music is performed, its image
in today’s world and of course an outdated education
system are to blame.
T his problematic approach to music education and a
lack of musicality are the main reasons for the sorry
situation in which classical music finds itself globally.
Not at all professional musicians demonstrate the proper
fundamentals of musicianship, and the mounting pressure
being felt among promoters, managers and artists is
leading the industry to the brink of an abyss. On top of
all this, classical music has to contend with the rapid
growth of technology, the impact of which should not
be underestimated.
Most of our existence today is inextricably bound
up with technology. The smartphone has become our
best friend and, as we place more and more faith in
technological advances, it’s safe to assume that, unless a
totally unexpected event occurs, we are entering a world
where most areas of our life will be controlled to a large
degree by artificial intelligence (AI). This extends to music
and musicians.
What does a future stacked with technology, full of
cyborgs, IoT (Internet of Things), wearable technology and
the fusion of biological and electronic ‘computers’ hold for
we pianists? And why is the idea of musicality connected
to all this?
The challenge for humans in such a future will surely
be to be better than computers and robots. Playing
mediocre interpretations of standard repertoire will surely
not suffice. Computers and robots of the near future will
be better than humans at claiming this middle ground
– ultra-competent but unimaginative. Moreover, they
will be cheaper, more robust and less capricious than
humans and their egos. Don’t fool yourself into thinking
that humans will always choose humans over computers:
humans will choose whatever excites them and is
more practical.
This replacement scenario is a very likely one if we
let things continue as they have been in recent decades.
www.international-piano.com
PERSONAL TOUCH
It’s already happening if you look around carefully,
although most people don’t see it or choose not to see it.
Audiences are already becoming used to robotic, soulless
music-making, because they have undergone years of
conditioning, repetition and a lack of music education.
All this has accelerated the normalisation of standardised
playing. The big question is: How are we getting out of
this? How do as musicians do we secure our position in a
world full of AI?
The solution is actually quite simple, but hard to
execute as we are so far into the negative spiral. Firstly,
it’s about global awareness of the problem – and luckily
more and more people are waking up. Then it’s about
bringing proper music education back into the core
curriculum, engaging teachers who have a sense of natural
music-making, using teaching methods that enhance
sensitivity and emotional depth. For this to happen,
however, we need the support of policy makers across the
educational field, who are not yet aware of the problem
and its complexity.
As for professional musicians’ education, we need to
focus on using technique solely for musical purposes
– how to understand and feel rubato, how to interpret
the composer’s expressions and intentions, how to learn
storytelling in music and research cross-references and
influences in the score. This will enable us to engage in
intuitive music-making based on old-school values. It
is also important to understand that only if one learns
first-hand from the best teachers – ones who understand
natural rubato, have a deep sense of sound and structure
and a feeling for harmonics – can one feel one’s own way
through music using the right values, full of musicality.
This is how Friedman, Paderewski, Cortot, Kempff and
many less-known pianists that are equally great, learnt
their craft.
‘Art and music play a crucial role in
defining who we are as human beings’
I want to be clear that I am not trying to turn the
clock back. I simply want a better, more musical and
creative future for classical music. And the best way, in
my opinion, is to take the essence of tradition and find
new ways forward, based on old-school values. Luckily it
is a proven method, but one that unfortunately got lost
somewhere during the 20th century. Great mentors are
obviously hard to find, but there are ways – and people
– who are working on making it easier. This includes my
wife and myself, whose startups aim to solve the supply
and demand issue. The goal is to make great teaching
accessible and affordable.
If we humans succeed in facilitating change, we might
be able to reinstate what I call the ‘metadata’ of music –
the deep metaphysical, spiritual inspiration that emerges
from the notes on a page, which is the only way to make
music meaningful. This ‘information-layer’ that musicians
create reveals the emotional intentions of the composer.
International Piano January/February 2022 27
 PERSONAL TOUCH
Wunder performs It is this sacred data in an interpretation that can only be
at the 2010 Chopin created by musicians who perform with real musicality.
Competition in Warsaw Due to recent discoveries in science, we know
that musicality can be a key not only to meaningful
performing, but also to the health and wellbeing of
musicians and non-musicians alike. For this reason,
musicality must be included in our education system in
a proper, coherent way that emphasises the ‘metadata’
within music – aspects which inspire instinctive,
individual performances rather than homogenised,
unnatural execution.
This is the only way we can assert our place as humans
in a hyper-technological future. Why? Because the
complex, metaphysical qualities of musicality and its
effects on the human brain is what AI and computers
will find it difficult to assimilate and acquire, which will
continue to give we humans the edge if we develop and
cultivate it now.
If we manage to raise awareness of what music should
really be about and why, we can turn this ship around
and secure the survival of this amazing art form. In the
process, we will give greater importance to classical
musicians, who unfortunately have become irrelevant
to wider society. While causes such as climate change
and social equality are incredibly important, the cause
of musicality – the ability to touch and transform lives
through music – is equally important for the future of the
human race, though it’s overlooked by almost everybody.
28 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
WOJCIECH GRZEDZINSKI
Art and music play a crucial role in defining who we are as
human beings.
If you are a piano teacher, performer, conductor,
promoter or music journalist, I invite you to think about
what you have just read the next time you engage with
music – when listening to and comparing performances,
teaching students or playing concerts. Change lies
in the hands of all of us: we must raise awareness of
the importance of true musicality and act together to
encourage it. At the end of the day, music without real
musicality is just an empty commodity – the last thing
that those who claim to love music should want. IP
Ingolf Wunder won multiple prizes at the Chopin
Competition 2010. He is also a conductor, composer
and co-founder of two IT startups (Appassio.com and
Appassimo.com). As a public speaker on music and
education, he has presented at numerous high-profile
events, including the Davos WEF SDG Lab, ASU GSV
San Diego and TEDx.
This article is based on his speech for the United
Nations Internet Governance Forum 2021 in Katowice,
Poland, which can be viewed in full via YouTube:
y2u.be/revDPPx6oWY
ingolfwunder.com
 CADENZA International
Summer Music School
16th-23rd July 2022,
Purcell School, London

Carole Presland Fali Pavri

John Thwaites Julian Jacobson

Solo Piano and Strings

www.cadenzainternationalsummermusicschool.com

For musicians, artists, dreamers and for you, who love

beauty and make your life into a true work of art.

U N IQU E P I A NO A N D C E L L O B E NC H E S
www.kaunus.com
 SUMMER SCHOOLS
Summer
notes
Key international courses
for amateur pianists and
students in 2022
UK
Benslow Music
BENSLOW MUSIC
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
Various dates
Benslow Music traces its roots to 1929 with
the founding of the Rural Music School. A
programme of short residential courses was
established in 1986 and has since grown
to offer 220 courses annually. Facilities at
Benslow include recital halls, practice rooms,
accommodation and catering for up to
50 guests.
Eligibility: From learner (Grade 1-2) to skilful
(Grade 8+)
Tuition: 2022 courses include French piano
music with David Gutman, sight-reading
with Christopher Roberts and Suzie Asquith,
Romantic piano with Timothy Barratt, and
Beethoven and beyond with Florian Mitrea.
Fees: Resident £320 to £535; non-resident £232
to £442. A discount of 25 per cent is offered for
under 27s
benslowmusic.org
Cadenza International
Summer Music School
Purcell School, London
16 to 23 July 2021
A summer school for piano and strings,
Cadenza offers both solo and chamber
coaching. All participants play in at least one
chamber group and partnerships often evolve
flexibly during the week. Cadenza prides
itself on a friendly and inclusive atmosphere,
giving every student unconditional support,
regardless of their level.
30 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Piano for two: adult
amateurs enjoy a class at
Benslow Music
Eligibility: Age 11+ from school pupils to
undergraduates, postgraduates and amateur
adults
Tuition: Solo and chamber lessons,
performance classes, student/staff concerts,
open masterclasses
Faculty: Julian Jacobson, Fali Pavri, Carole
Presland, John Thwaites – guest professor tba
Fees: £685 – includes tuition, accommodation
and catering
cadenzasummerschool.org.uk
Finchcocks
Goudhurst, Kent
Various dates
Pianist Richard Burnett and his wife Katrina
bought Finchcocks manor house in 1971
and transformed their home into a museum
of period keyboard instruments that soon
gained international acclaim. Following
the Burnetts’ retirement in 2015, parts of
the house were renovated to accommodate
regular residential piano courses. Nine grand
pianos, including a Steinway Model B, an 1893
Broadwood and a Model 200 Bösendorfer, are
available to play.
Eligibility: Beginner to advanced
Tuition: Group workshops on technique,
masterclasses on repertoire and performance,
duet sessions. Special courses for 2022
include Baroque keyboard music, Chopin, the
Impressionists, jazz for classical pianists and
tackling nerves. Two five-day summer courses
take place in July
Faculty: Steven Devine, Graham Fitch, Daniel
Grimwood, David Hall, Warren Mailley-Smith,
Florian Mitrea, Penelope Roskell, Vedrana
Subotic, William Westney
Fees: From £620 – includes tuition,
accommodation and catering
finchcocks.com
Jackdaws Weekend
Piano Courses
Frome, Somerset
February to July 2022
Jackdaws Music Education Trust is dedicated
to improving participation in and enjoyment
of music through its weekend courses,
education projects, Young Artists Programme
and performances by international musicians.
The piano courses follow a masterclass format
and attendees perform on a Steinway in the
centre’s specially built studio.
Eligibility: Intermediate to advanced
Tuition: Masterclasses, tutor-led discussions,
seminars
Faculty: Timothy Barratt, Margaret Fingerhut,
Graham Fitch, Alisdair Hogarth, Graeme
Humphrey, Julian Jacobson, Melanie
Spanswick, Mark Tanner, William Westney
Fees: £310 to £440 – includes tuition and
catering. Accommodation from £40 per night
jackdaws.org.uk

Lot Music
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
11 to 18 July 2022
Now in its 22nd year, Lot Music has gathered
an international following among adult
amateur pianists. The next course will be
held at Fair Oak Farm near Tunbridge Wells,
with opportunities to relax and enjoy the
surrounding countryside between daily
masterclasses and lessons.
Eligibility: Grade 8+
Tuition: Masterclasses, private lessons, recital
opportunities
Faculty: Murray McLachlan, Graham Scott
Fees: tba
pianolotmusic.com
Pianissimi
Ipswich, Suffolk
2 to 5 June 2022
Pianissimi was launched in 2017 at the Royal
Hospital School, Ipswich. It has been described
by participants as a ‘life-changing’ experience.
Run by piano-playing friends Alison Bestow
and Claire Vane, the curriculum is both fun
and in-depth, including sessions on nerves,
performance, piano construction, music editing
and accompanying. Yoga is also taught to
encourage general health and wellbeing. The
course culminates in a final concert.
Eligibility: Adult piano learners of all ages and
abilities
Tuition: Masterclasses, individual lessons,
performance opportunities
Faculty: Graham Fitch, Nicholas Moloney,
Penelope Roskell, Warren Mailley-Smith
Fees: £525 – includes tuition, accommodation
and catering
pianissimi.wordpress.com
Piano Sanctuary
Leiston Abbey, Suffolk
Various dates
Piano Sanctuary, founded by the Pro Corda
music school, offers a creative method to
piano tuition designed to fast-track progress
and enjoyment. Each weekend retreat includes
up to six hours of tuition per day alongside
www.international-piano.com
social events such as a ‘champagne and jazz’
evening. Piano Sanctuary also offers online
courses comprising pre-recorded video
lessons and live Zoom classes.
Eligibility: Adult piano learners of all ages and
abilities
Tuition: Individual and group lessons,
improvisation classes, duet sessions, postural
coaching, yoga, concert performances
Fees: £420 – includes tuition, accommodation
and catering
pianosanctuary.co.uk
Sherborne Summer School
of Music
Sherborne, Dorset
31 July to 14 August 2022
Sherborne Summer School celebrates its 70th
anniversary in 2022. Located at Sherborne
School for Boys in one of Dorset’s most
beautiful medieval market towns, the summer
school welcomes adult musicians of all ages
and abilities to meet in a friendly, supportive
atmosphere. Courses are delivered by a faculty
of internationally celebrated teachers. This
year’s programme features a solo piano course
led by Julian Jacobson (31 July to 7 August)
and a piano accompaniment course with Nigel
Hutchison (7 to 14 August).
Eligibility: All ages and abilities
Tuition: Masterclasses and performance
opportunities
Faculty: Julian Jacobson, Nigel Hutchison
Fees: £710 full board, £510 half board, £388 for
daily participants. Pricing does not include
VAT. A limited number of bursaries are
available for gifted British musicians.
sherbornesummerschoolofmusic.org
St Mary’s Piano Summer School
St Mary’s School, Edinburgh
7 to 12 August 2022
St Mary’s Piano Summer School is an intensive
week designed to improve technique, confidence
and playing ability. The course is limited to 12
participants and is led by Helena Buckmayer
and John Cameron, experts in helping young
musicians build their skills. Taking place during
the Edinburgh International Festival, students
also get to enjoy the city’s festive atmosphere.
International Piano January/February 2022
SUMMER SCHOOLS
Eligibility: Ages 13 to 17; Grade 7+
Tuition: One-to-one lessons, performance
classes, duo coaching with another
instrumentalist, lesson observation, yoga,
Alexander Technique, concert opportunities
Faculty: Helena Buckmayer, John Cameron
Fees: £795 – includes food, accommodation
and tuition
stmarysmusicschool.co.uk
Summer School for Pianists
Stowe, Buckinghamshire
14 to 20 August 2021
The Summer School for Pianists takes place at
the all-Steinway music department of Stowe
School, set within 250 acres of landscaped
grounds that boast a golf course and tennis
courts. This year’s theme is ‘Landscape,
Architecture and Water’. New initiatives
in 2022 include a pilot series of ‘Harmonic
Cocktail’ music sessions in the bar each
evening, plus ‘Come and Sing Mozart’s
Lacrimosa’ – a 45-minute choral session led by
conductor Pam Clements, with repetiteur Ann
Martin-Davis at the piano.
Eligibility: Age 18+; masterclass participants
should be Grade 4 to diploma+ standard
Tuition: Three masterclasses with 30
minutes per student, private lessons, piano
accompaniment class, tutor presentations,
recital opportunities
Faculty: Anne-Martin Davis, Graham Fitch,
Daniel Hill, Karl Lutchmayer, Christine
Stevenson
Fees: Piano masterclass participants £950;
observers attending classes, activities
and concerts £850. Fees include tuition,
accommodation and catering
pianosummerschool.co.uk
Wells Music Summer School:
International Piano Week
Wells, Somerset
31 July to 6 August 2022
Wells Cathedral School boasts an
internationally renowned specialist music
faculty that delivers annual summer courses
for young musicians. The International Piano
Week is designed to equip players aged 10 to
18 with a wide range of skills and explores key
genres including piano duets, chamber music
31
 SUMMER SCHOOLS
(advanced players), piano accompaniment and
jazz. All participants will be given opportunities
perform on the Steinway grand piano in the
school’s state-of-the-art concert hall.
Eligibility: Ages 10-18; Grade 5+
Tuition: Masterclasses and performance
opportunities
Faculty: Joseph Tong, Sophia Surenova
McKett, Hilary Coates, Dhevdhas Nair,
David Secchi
Fees: £945 full board; £745 for daily
participants. Bookings made before 28
February will Receive a 10 per cent early bird
discount
wells.cathedral.school/international-piano-
week
EUROPE
ArtePiano International
Festival and Piano Competition
Castelnuovo di Farfa, Italy
16 to 23 July 2022
The ArtePiano International Festival and
Piano Competition is a new initiative that
builds on the success of the organisation’s
32 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
pre-pandemic masterclass weekends. The
aim of ArtePiano is to create an immersive
environment where students and young
professionals can prepare for an upcoming
exam, competition, concert or audition.
Events take place at various venues across the
town of Castelnuovo di Farfa, located 25 miles
northeast of Rome. The 2nd International
ArtePiano Competition will be held over two
days towards the end of the festival.
Eligibility: Pianists of any age and ability
Tuition: Masterclasses, private lessons,
lectures and performances by guest artists
Faculty: Mark Nixon, Yuki Negishi, Roberto
Russo
Fees: €330 for a festival pass
arte-piano.com
Canel – Piano with
James Lisney
Thézac, France
13 August to
10 September 2022
Taking place at Canel, a fortified 16th-century
farmhouse in southwest France, attendees at
James Lisney’s week-long summer courses
will enjoy spacious accommodation, local
Castelnuovo di Farfa near Rome
is the new home of the ArtePiano
Festival and Competition
ARTEPIANO
food and wines, and opportunities to play
Bechstein and Yamaha C5 grand pianos.
Eligibility: All ability levels; age 18+
Tuition: Three masterclasses with a minimum
of 30 minutes per student, three individual
45-minute lessons, lecture-recitals and
presentations, concerts
Tutor: James Lisney
Fees: €1,450 to €1,850 – includes tuition,
accommodation and catering. Guest fee €750
pianowithjameslisney.com
Castle Piano Course
Castletownshend, Ireland
26 March to 2 April
This new piano course will take place in the
picturesque environs of Castletownshend,
West Cork, where participants are guaranteed
a warm welcome at the village’s 17th-century
castle, now run as a boutique B&B. James
Lisney leads a full programme of daily
masterclasses, workshops and individual
lessons on a Steinway B. Extracurricular
activities on offer include swimming, rowing,
kayaking and whale watching. All meals are
provided, showcasing a range of local produce.
Eligibility: All ability levels; age 18+
Tuition: Masterclasses, workshops and
individual lessons, plus performance
opportunities
Tutor: James Lisney
Booking: Contact Emma Bunting at
emmaspiano@yahoo.co.uk
pianowithjameslisney.com
International Summer
Piano Academy
Disentis, Switzerland
24 July to 7 August 2022
Now in its 12th year, the International
Summer Piano Academy aims to discover,
support and promote outstanding young
pianists. The intensive two-week course
brings together leading piano professors,
musicologists, writers and journalists to
enable participants to deepen their artistic
skills and knowledge. The beautiful location
of Disentis Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in
the Graubündner mountains, offers sports and
recreational facilities.

Eligibility: Students or graduates aged 15-35
who intend to make music their career
Tuition: Five hours of private tuition, lectures,
seminars, workshops, concert opportunities
Faculty: Gustav Alink, Sergei Edelmann, Pavel
Gililov, Thomas Hecht, Gianlua Luisi, Mira
Marchenko, Konstantin Scherbakov
Fees: Resident participant CHF 2,500; resident
observer CHF 1,700 (2 weeks) or CHF 850
(1 week); observer day pass CHF 30
musicaldiscovery.ch
Music Holiday Italy
Montefalcone, Italy
April to September 2022
Gil Jetley’s week-long piano courses take place
at Montemuse, a rural farmhouse in Italy’s
picturesque Marche region. Four hours of
private coaching per day enables participants
to make rapid progress, while trips to local
restaurants each evening give a flavour of the
region’s atmosphere and cuisine.
Eligibility: Amateur pianists of all ability
levels from beginner to diploma+
Tuition: 20+ hours of private tuition
Tutor: Gil Jetley
Fees: 1-week course £2,800 per participant
and £1,500 per guest. Multi-week course
by arrangement. Fees include tuition,
accommodation and meals
musicholidayitaly.com
Piano Classes for
Amateur Pianists
Blonay, Switzerland
11 to 14 April 2022
Composer Paul Hindemith spent his final
decade in the village of Blonay, and this course
takes place the music centre established in his
name. Situated above the cities of Vevey and
Montreux, with views of the Swiss plateau, it
offers an idyllic setting for music-making. The
course is designed for intermediate players
and will be led by British pianist and teacher
Graham Fitch, whose daily masterclasses are
presented in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
Extra fees apply for private lessons and
sessions in Alexander Technique.
Eligibility: Adult amateur pianists; Grades 4-8
Tuition: Masterclasses, private lessons,
www.international-piano.com
Alexander Technique
Faculty: Graham Fitch, Fanny Gsteiger
Fees: £575 for a single participant – includes
tuition, accommodation and catering. Guest
fee £457
masterclasses-amateur-pianists.ch
USA
Morningside Music Bridge
Boston, Massachusetts
7 to 30 July 2022
Morningside Music Bridge brings together
outstanding young pianists, violinists, violaists
and cellists from around the globe for a month
of intensive music-making. MMB charges no
tuition fees, guaranteeing barrier-free learning
that has benefitted hundreds of young
musicians since the programme’s inception in
1997. Alumni include Yuja Wang, Jan Lisiecki
and Szymon Nehring.
Eligibility: Ages 12 to 18; entry via online
audition
Tuition: Masterclasses, private lessons,
concerto competition, chamber coaching,
numerous performance opportunities
Faculty: Wha Kyung Byun, Krzystof Jablonski,
International Piano January/February 2022
SUMMER SCHOOLS
Antonio Pompa-Baldi joins the guest faculty
for this year’s Morningside Music Bridge
Kum Sing Lee, HaeSun Paik, Piotr Palenczny,
Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Jay Peng Chieh Sun,
Arie Vardi, Xiohan Wang
mmb.international
USA Piano Camp: Liszt and the
Virtuoso
University of South Alabama
20 to 24 July 2022
The theme for the 2022 edition of the USA
Piano Camp is ‘Liszt and the Virtuoso’.
Students are invited to prepare a virtuosic
piece on which they will receive a mini lesson
from at least four teachers during the week.
Daily faculty recitals featuring works by Liszt
include the Sonata in B minor, Dante Sonata,
Mephisto Waltz No 1, Transcendental Studies,
Ballade No 2 and Hungarian Rhapsody No 2.
Eligibility: Age 11+
Tuition: Daily masterclasses and mini-
lessons, classes on technique, theory, form and
literature, special presentations
Faculty: Michael Gurt, James Helton, Robert
Holm, Axel Lenarduzzi, Hannah Roberts
Fees: $350 (does not include accommodation
or catering)
southalabama.edu/colleges/music/
pianocamp
33
 RETURNING TO THE PIANO
Murray McLachlan launches his new technical refresher
course for recommencing piano enthusiasts

Introduction
O ne of the most positive recent
developments in piano playing is the
emergence of a growing community of adult
amateurs and enthusiasts. There are many
pianists who took their playing seriously in
childhood, but for various reasons had to stop
lessons and even give up playing altogether.
This new course in 20 parts is designed
with such players in mind, though it will also
be useful for players who wish to take stock
of their technique or overhaul their pianistic
approach. The 20 parts will provide the advice
and materials necessary for technical health,
steady development and progress. Whether
you are a serious student wishing to take
your playing to the next level, a lapsed pianist
keen to return to the keyboard or a seasoned
performer stepping back to reassess your
technique, you will discover tools, concepts
and approaches that enable you to make
holistic and rapid progress.
Venture into any summer school, festival
or concert series and you will find fiercely
committed players from a diverse range of
backgrounds and professions united by their
love of piano playing. It is not uncommon to
meet individuals who have recommenced
playing after decades away from lessons or
serious consideration of the instrument in
any sense.
Pressures of school exams are frequently
cited as one reason for the initial break.
Returning to the instrument occurs for many
reasons. Some always wanted to play again.
Others have a ‘eureka’ moment – a sudden,
passionate realisation that they want to play a
particular prelude by Rachmaninov or a study
by Chopin – prompting them to reconnect
with the instrument immediately! Murray McLachlan: ‘I deeply admire the commitment that many adult returning pianists display’
I deeply admire the commitment that many
adult returning pianists display. In an era when be vulnerable to mishaps, as can easily be seen music, with its often rigid adherence to grades
apathy and cynicism are all too common, such by comparing music with sport. and diplomas, too many players assume that
love and devotion is extremely special. Adult If you were a wonderful sprinter in your if they were playing Grade 7 pieces at 18 they
amateurs are often among the most devoted teens, then completely stopped exercising for can immediately recommence after a 20-year
concertgoers, the most interested in repertoire decades, it would be unwise to recommence break with works of the same difficulty – even
and interpretive approaches, and the most training immediately at the same level. Injury if they have done virtually no playing in the
dedicated collectors of recordings and books and discouragement would likely follow as it interim period! Risks of injury in music are
on piano playing and music. Yet they can also would take time for your body to adjust. Yet in every bit as real as in sport, so it is important

34 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


for adult returning amateurs to seek guidance
in this respect.
It is easy to understand why returning
players are so keen to recommence where
they left off. This is due to the unhealthy and
misguided connection between pianistic
progression and the number of notes on the
printed page. But it is wrong to assume that
you have to play ‘difficult’ music in order to
make musical progress. It is also wrong to feel
that you should not play elementary pieces
after you can cope with advanced ones.
One of the main challenges in teaching
adult returners is moving them away from
repertoire that challenges them to their limits.
If you always play music that stretches your
technique, you end up focusing on mechanical
survival rather than more inspiring matters.
This is a shame, as motivation and creativity
thrive when you have time and space to focus
on phrasing, characterisation, colour and
voicing. It is certainly possible to discuss these
things with a player who is struggling with
stiffness and co-ordination issues in Chopin’s
Etude Op 25/12 – but if the player in question
is risking personal injury due to locked wrists
and poor posture, their teacher must focus
instead on musical health and wellbeing.
Adult returners need to consider their
motivations carefully before picking repertoire.
Rather than always reaching for Rachmaninov,
it can be revelatory to hear an artist like
Sir András Schiff playing Bach’s Two- and
Three-Part Inventions. Similarly, listening to
Schumann’s exquisite Album for the Young
www.international-piano.com
or Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons opens up a
universe of expressivity, characterisation and
colour that is well within the grasp of many
players. Even performing some of Mozart’s
earliest Minuets or pieces from Bach’s Anna
Magdalena Notebook can – and indeed should
– be truly inspirational.
None of us should ever feel that technically
easy but musically wonderful repertoire is
‘beneath’ us as performers. A few years ago, I
was invited to give a concert recital for a well-
known music society of works from Grade 1
through to Grade 8 ABRSM exam pieces. I can
honestly say that performing the elementary
pieces was exactly the same as performing the
more advanced ones in terms of delivery and
approach.
Nonetheless, most adult returners will feel
discouraged if they are advised not to study
pieces with which they have fallen in love.
And it would be wrong to give them children’s
books with colourful cartoon illustrations
and the like! Approaches that work well for
the under 10s do not necessarily prove so
successful for adults.
With this in mind it is good to have a basic
collection of ‘universal repertoire’ which is
appropriate for players of all levels and ages –
music which can be recreated with relish not only
by less experienced players, but also by concert
artists and advanced students. I would certainly
include the theme of the Goldberg Variations in
this list, as well as Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude and
Beethoven’s unjustly maligned Für Elise. Grieg’s
early Lyric Pieces would also be strong candidates
McLachlan performs at
Manchester’s Stoller Hall
International Piano January/February 2022
EDUCATION
for inclusion (the opening ‘Arietta’ regularly
features on Grade 4 exams lists and is exquisite
– try Emil Gilels’ recording) as would works by
Satie and the aforementioned Schumann (Album
for the Young).
M y course for readers for International
Piano will be laid out in 10 sections,
each of which will be examined in theory and
in practice:
I Posture and co-ordination – relaxation
and firmness
II Finger independence and dexterity
III Movements – lateral, rotary, wave,
trigger, vibrato
IV Touches – legato, non-legato, staccato,
leggiero, weighed, prepared, free/off the
keys
V Sound – sonority, tone, colour, voicing,
balancing, texture
VI Shape and rhythm – phrasing, cantabile,
structure, parlando, linear flow
VII Speed
VIII Strength
IX Stamina
X Security
Given that we live in an age where time is
of the essence, my aim is to provide the most
effective ways forward in as concise a format
as possible. Exercises both at the piano and
away from the instrument will be included,
along with studies, practise techniques and
appropriate repertoire excerpts from the
Renaissance to the present day that re-enforce
recommended technical approaches. The
elements of improvisation and rhythm in
isolation will also be explored.
This concentrated approach should be
particularly well suited to returning or
consolidating/refresher players as it means they
can focus on essential issues without feeling
that they are going ‘back to the beginning’ and
relearning everything from scratch.
Physical and mental health are
prerequisites, so the next instalment in March
will focus on wellbeing – setting down a
strong foundation on which every player can
flourish. IP
Murray McLachlan teaches at the UK’s
Royal Northern College of Music and has
led the keyboard department at Chetham’s
School of Music since 1997. He is the
founder and artistic director of Chetham’s
International Summer School and Festival
for Pianists, Europe’s largest summer school
devoted exclusively to the piano
murraymclachlan.co.uk
35
 AV OD
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AI N
O

N O L E S AG
L A EW

W IN EN
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PRESENTS...

AL T S
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Chopin: The Perfect Virtuoso
His life, music and legacy explored
TIMELESS MASTERPIECES • PEERLESS PERFORMERS • ESSENTIAL RECORDINGS

PRESENTS… www.international-piano.com

The perfect virtuoso – £12.99

01

his life, music and

legacy explored
LE CTORS’ EDITION FROM INTERNATIONAL PIANO’S ARCHIV
100-PAGE COL - Insights into Chopin’s life and major works -
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- Collector’s guides for key Chopin recordings -
- Recommended books and further resources -

Order your copy for just £12.99

Go to www.magsubscriptions.com/chopin
Call: 0800 137201 (UK) or +44 (0)1722 716997 (Overseas)

Ronan O’Hora explores the otherworldly qualities of the �rst
movement of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata
INTERVIEW BY JESSICA DUCHEN
I t appears Beethoven made a reference to
Shakespeare’s The Tempest when discussing
the Sonata Op 31/2. We wonder what was in his
mind. There is certainly a sense of mystery that
recalls Caliban’s comment, ‘The isle is full of
noises’. This is one possible explanation for the
interpolations that appear as if from another
world. Ironically, as Beethoven’s deafness
took hold, his aural imagination extended. He
increasingly used sound effects nobody had
heard before, and rarely used afterwards.
Because the opening is hushed, with a
mysterious edge, we risk losing the sense that
it prefigures the first subject. It needs some of
that same DNA, in mysterious, frozen form.
Pianistically, don’t employ much weight in
www.international-piano.com
MASTERCLASS
the hand: it’s like putting something down on
water as you place each note on to the pedal.
Don’t use too much arm weight either, but
keep a very focused bridge of the hand. As you
come into the next idea, with repeated notes
(bars 2-5 and thereafter), the active hand is
very important.
Beethoven was an accomplished string
player and used to play in the Bonn orchestra.
For a violinist, playing these patterns involves
real exertion; find some of that sense, without
making yourself uncomfortable. Try to manage
these passages less with the fingers, more
with the weight of the hand. Practise slowly,
giving yourself time to experience the physical
sensation deeply, more than simply the idea.
There are three different tempi within the
first six bars – largo, allegro, adagio. Often
International Piano January/February 2022
the adagio (bar 6) becomes a replica of the
largo (bars 1-2, bar 7), but they should be
demonstrably different. The music is alla breve,
so the largo is a very slow two-in-a-bar. For the
allegro, remember it’s in two, not four; the latter
would be like speaking with the wrong kind of
syllabic stress.
Bar 21 presents various options for fingerings
and hand-crossings. Personally, I don’t cross for
bars 22-24. To manage the triplets, which risk
becoming an over-insistent aggregate of sound,
stay within the key – don’t bring the keys all the
way up – and keep the hand relaxed. Again, the
alla breve makes the pulse organically natural.
The centrality with which Beethoven uses
the pedal is interesting. It is not a question of
‘adding’ pedal; you have to play on the pedal.
Therefore, in these passages you don’t go as
Ronan O’Hora: ‘Beethoven often asks
for something unusual and audacious’
37
 MASTERCLASS
deep into the key bed as you would if using little
or no pedal. The pedal is, among other things,
an amplifier, particularly as the sound builds
up. (For example, in bar 21, employ the natural
support of the forearm; we need the wrist, the
elbow and the shoulder all working as levers.)
In bars 22-24, the quiet tone still needs a
core. That comes from resilience in the bridge
of the hand, providing support. In Beethoven
it’s essential to differentiate between piano and
pianissimo, and between forte and fortissimo.
With the best intentions of playing sensitively,
some pianists make the pianos too quiet to
distinguish from the pianissimos. For Beethoven,
a chain of sforzandos (bars 29-38) is often an
implied crescendo. That’s another reason you
need to know where the pianissimo is, because
it has to have an element of extremity; likewise
the fortissimo. Often the fortissimo is reached
too soon; the diminished chords (bars 38-40)
indicate the extra level of intensity.
Beethoven uses a kind of suppression to
achieve greater force upon release. That is
what is happening in the second subject (bars
41-49), so don’t crescendo through it. You’re
building up an underlying head of steam until
the crescendo is actually marked (bar 49 and
following): it’s like water behind a dam. I want
a distinctive sensation while playing bars
52-54: it’s dramatic in itself, simply having the
longer slur in bar 54.
The chord at bars 55-56 is the first long note
since the opening. The essence of szforzando,
I think, is a note that is not necessarily louder,
but sounds perceptibly different from the
others around it. Here the meaning is not so
much the note’s attack, but its prolongation:
in your ear, you don’t want the note to decay
at all. Too much attack creates the opposite
effect. A string player would instinctively
understand that a note has a beginning,
a middle and an end, and very often the
beginning is not the most important.
Through bars 59-63, the music decrescendos,
but you sometimes hear it slithering away
rather apologetically. Beethoven is asking for
something very precise and there needs to be
a narrative within it. This takes practice. Each
note must be calibrated.
Another implied crescendo through
sforzandos arrives (bars 64-68). Beethoven
then sends the hands to opposite polarities
of the keyboard. Try to feel the reach to
both ends, but don’t go off into two different
worlds. It is an unusual texture, but it works.
38 January/February 2022 International Piano
Beethoven often asks for something unusual
and audacious, but with rare exceptions, he
doesn’t ask for things that can’t work. He
never lost his physical relationship with the
instrument, which must have been central for
him when he could no longer hear.
Next, we come to the high, almost
syncopated slurred thirds (bars 69-74). If there
wasn’t a slur over them, you would naturally
emphasise the second note, but instead,
reverse the physical sensation so that the first
note is the stronger, more analogous to the
bow on the string.
We sometimes feel exposed neurotically in
case we drop a note. But there are areas where
you should feel exposed. In such moments, an
audience can hear what you hear. If you keep
your finger on a note, but you have stopped
hearing it, it will be evident. From bar 75 to
the double bar, it is not enough to simply hold
the notes: you have to hear them all the way
through. If you do, then you automatically
make the adjustments you need in the texture.
Busoni once said that finger legato can
be the enemy of legato – and if you try too
hard, it can kind of asphyxiate the sound.
Legato is always an illusion: a hammer is
hitting the next note and our job is to make
that imperceptible to the listener. Sometimes
only finger legato will work. But the effect
is achieved by the marriage of the decay
of one note with the beginning of another:
that creates a line. The end of the exposition
( from bar 88) is a good example. You can also
reinforce the unisons by giving greater weight
to the upper part, letting the lower, darker
textures support and lend colour.
Beginning the development, the third largo
rolled chord is different from the first. After
it clears up there is a moment of silence.
But because there is no silence after the
third one (bar 98), there’s a greater sense of
serenity, immediately followed by a shock
– which is what creates the full effect. With
these moments of detonation in Beethoven,
however, the effect doesn’t have to be
prolonged and become shouty: this is the
start of a seismic moment heralding a whole
sequence where again, Beethoven is building
up via a chain of szforzandos.
At the apex, note the slurs ( from bar 122):
it’s a governing mechanism to stop the sound
being over-forced. It is about pathos, rather
than aggression. He collects the sound in
the middle of the keyboard, and you need a
sense of where you want to end up after five
bars because of the overhanging resonance.
Often where you get to a climactic point,
it’s a release of tension – the music is going
from one climactic moment to another – but
sometimes the climax is not necessarily there.
Bar 139 is perhaps a poetic sforzando, paving
the way for what comes next.
In the strange and beautiful recitative
passages (bars 143-158) you can see why
Beethoven might have mentioned The
Tempest. As recitative, it should be simply and
mysteriously spoken, not sung. Turning it into
melody would miss the point. I think there
should be a discernible speech rhythm. Try
having some words in mind.
I think Beethoven’s pedal markings here are
absolutely doable: you play on the resonance
that you have created. His instrument’s sound
would not disappear and would still have a
deliberate, mystical backdrop. On some pianos
I might use the soft pedal to give a subtly
veiled sound – just don’t use it as ‘insurance’.
It can be a beautiful effect, but it always takes
out some of the natural colour.
There is all the difference in the world
between the recitative and what follows (bars
158-171). A-flat is not the same as G-sharp –
and the electricity here can set off the hairs
on the back of your neck. A good way to
practise the flourishes is to hold the chord
instead of playing the figuration: it must have
a discernible, coherent shape that you can still
hear when you add the embellishment.
On the recapitulation most concerns are
the same, until the last line or two. Here, the
pedalling is about its depth: for bars 219-225,
marked in one continuous pedal, I use about
50 per cent, depending on the instrument. I
can’t think of any prolonged pedal marking
in Beethoven that isn’t pianissimo. As before,
piano is the natural way of speaking, but with
pianissimo it’s immediately obvious when
you’ve entered that territory. It is only there
that he asks for this pedalling. This is true even
in the last two chords: these should be placed
down on to the pedal. IP
Ronan O’Hora is the head of keyboard and
advanced performance studies at London’s
Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He
will present a complete cycle of Beethoven’s
piano sonatas at St James’ Church, Chipping
Campden, UK in autumn 2022
www.international-piano.com
 Sonata
Sonata
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Op 31/2
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44 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

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46 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

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48 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

 SHEET MUSIC

Nicolas Namoradze

Moon, Refracted
A Variation on Rentarō Taki’s Kōjō No Tsuki

ANOUSH ABRAR
BY NICOLAS NAMORADZE Nicolas Namoradze

M any of my formative years were spent

in Hungary, the birthplace of modern
ethnomusicology, and my musical training there
included the study of folk music. Ever since, I’ve
been fascinated by the way composers adapt
such musical idioms in their work. In my own
compositions, I have occasionally experimented
with integrating elements of folk music from
Georgia, my country of birth.
As I was gearing up for my first recital tour
of Japan in 2019, I had the idea to write a work
based on a Japanese folk tune to play as an
encore. I settled on Kōjō No Tsuki (‘Moon over
the Ruined Castle’) by Rentarō Taki (1879-
1903) – not quite a traditional folk tune, but a
much-beloved song that is taught at an early
age to Japanese schoolchildren.
I was moved by the combination of sparse
simplicity with poignant expressive power
in Taki’s work. The Kōjō No Tsuki theme
reflects the concept of wabi-sabi, a Buddhism-
inspired facet of Japanese aesthetics that I find than the parts. Accented notes of the theme find my live recording on YouTube: y2u.be/
particularly intriguing, given my interest in Zen. are embedded in this steady pitter-patter, int8ihonyao. I hope you also enjoy delving into
Wabi-sabi stands for the appreciation of the and as the work progresses there is a gentle the sound-world and atmosphere it evokes. IP
beauty of impermanence, incompleteness and increase in complexity: the range of the
imperfection, and is characterised by sparseness, texture broadens, the figuration becomes
austerity and a certain melancholy purity. harmonically richer, and the theme’s pitches
I thus set out to write a piece that would begin appearing in different registers, resulting
reflect this quality. Moon, Refracted is in a in angular fragmentation.
theme-and-variations form – with only a single An inverse process occurs following an
variation. The theme itself is initially presented arrival at the tonic pitch class in the keyboard’s
not only unaccompanied and unadorned, but bass register. There is a registral contraction
divested of markings for dynamics and rhythm, upwards, the figuration becomes simpler
with only slurs to suggest phrasing. with an absence of clearly marked thematic
The variation constitutes an unbroken notes, and the texture returns to its original
stream of quavers, beginning from the same sparseness, eventually fading out in the upper
high register in which the preceding theme octaves of the instrument. The structure of the
appears. While there is no more than a single work thus somewhat resembles the opening
notated voice, the octave displacement of the and folding of a Japanese hand fan. Moon, Refracted is available from
figuration gives the impression of multiple Writing and performing this work has been Nicolas Namoradze’s publisher, Muse Press
polyphonic layers, the sum thus greater a very special experience for me – you can muse-press.com

www.international-piano.com International Piano January/February 2022 49

 Moon, Refracted
A Variation on Rentarō Taki’s Kōjō No Tsuki
Nicolas Namoradze

Lento
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Moon, Refracted
A Variation on Rentarô Taki's "Kôjô No Tsuki" Nicolas Namoradze
May 2019
A Variation on Rentarô Taki's "Kôjô No Tsuki" Nicolas Namoradze

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50 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

© Nicolas Namoradze — Artisjus

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www.international-piano.com International Piano January/February 2022 51
 3

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52 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


Celtic Piano Music
BY ELENA COBB
C eltic Piano Music is a new publication
from EVC Music. Every piece in this
extensive collection by Scottish composer
Donald Thomson draws inspiration from
Scotland and the Scottish Islands.
Upbeat pieces such as ‘The Guddly
Burn’, ‘The Kelpies’ Jig’ or ‘The Brownie of
Ballachulish’ sit comfortably under the
fingers and could readily be transcribed
for a traditional Scottish cèilidh – a social
gathering with dancing, singing and music-
making. Slower and more poetic works like
‘Innerleithen Air’ and ‘Melrose Abbey’, with
their homophonic,
chordal textures
could just as easily
be turned into
vocal works.
‘The Fairy Pools’
is a sparkling
depiction of the
natural waterfalls
Scottish composer
Donald Thomson
www.international-piano.com
SHEET MUSIC
Donald Thomson
Glen Brittle on Skye
and brightly shimmering pools of Glen
Brittle on the Isle of Skye. It is a wild and
rocky landscape, inhabited by a great variety
Scottish composer. His Celtic Piano Music
comprises four previously published piano
suites: A Borders Suite, A Hebrides Suite,
of native wildlife and, according to legend, Scottish Waters and Myths & Legends. This
fairies. The piece is also a technical study that series celebrates Scotland’s beauty and was
features cascades of shimmering arpeggios nominated for the Best Print Publication
above a bass melody. The harmonies are often Award at the 2018 Music & Drama Education
based on consecutive chords, with unexpected Expo in London. IP
interplay between major and minor tonalities,
producing an ethereal, otherworldly effect.
Thomson’s love of music came from his
mother, a very successful piano teacher. He
studied at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy
of Music and Drama and established a
career in music publishing before turning
freelance. He recently formed a duo
with Edinburgh-based Russian cellist
Anna McCann and is the accompanist
for the Dalkeith Singers and Southside
Choir. Thomson is married to a talented
amateur artist and lives near Edinburgh.
Thomson’s compositional style is
infused with the folk music of Scotland, Donald Thomson’s Celtic Piano Music is
from Gaelic songs to fiddle and pipe available from EVC Music
tunes, making him a true national
International Piano January/February 2022 53
 The Fairy Pools
The Fairy Pools
From Celtic Piano Music

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54 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

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 RECORDING FOCUS
S
teeling himself for the first movement
cadenza of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano
Concerto, Alfonso Soldano wipes
his brow, dispatches the peremptory
opening chords and unleashes a tirade of
churning arpeggios. Sweat dripping from his
nose as he builds to an incandescent climax,
the pianist segues into a monumental chordal
rendition of the main theme. Members
of the State Philharmonic Orchestra of
Bacău watch with awe before beginning a
dreamy interjection, the full, earthy sound
reverberating around Trani Cathedral.
This meditative, agonised performance,
which is viewable on YouTube (y2u.be/
H8evA9-d1js), dates back to 2012. Soldano’s
career has taken off since then. Released a year
ago, the pianist’s disc of solo Rachmaninov
works wowed critics: it was named as an
American Record Guide Critic’s Choice in
2020, and selected by Bryce Morrison as
International Piano’s album of the month
for November/December 2020. ‘This is
60 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Self portrait
Italian pianist Alfonso Soldano captures
two sides of his musical personality with
a new recording of transcriptions.
James Imam reports
Rachmaninov “through a glass darkly”, leaving
you awed and shaken by such an eloquent
and anguished interpreter,’ Morrison wrote in
these pages.
Now, the 35-year-old pianist, who hails
from the coastal village of Trani in Puglia,
has another record to his name. It is his
most personal yet. Released last November,
Metamorphoses features Soldano’s own
transcriptions of Rachmaninov songs and of
Debussy’s Nocturnes (originally for choir and
orchestra) together with the prelude from his
cantata L’enfant prodigue. The result is a kind
of self portrait. ‘This disc captures the two
sides of my musical personality,’ Soldano says
in an interview. ‘The Rachmaninov has the
kind of intensity that I believe in; the Debussy
evokes an imaginary world apart.’
Soldano is also credited as the disc’s sound
engineer and has written the sleeve note essay
himself, making the project a fitting testament
to his broad interests and talents. Aged 35,
Soldano teaches piano at the Conservatory
Alfonso Soldano: ‘Music-making is not a
business with a commercial end; it is research’
of Lecce, has published a book on an obscure
Ukrainian composer, and helped launch the
Foundation European Arts Academy ‘Aldo
Ciccolini’ – a Trani-based music school and
concert series founded in 2008 – of which
he is artistic director. His transcriptions of
Rachmaninov’s works are published by Boosey
& Hawkes.
The art of transcribing is less a process
of making ‘intellectual borrowings or mere
transpositions’ as creating ‘compositions that
have a life of their own,’ Soldano writes in the
sleeve notes for Metamorphoses. The pianist
is skilled at absorbing artistic material and
making it his own. In Il confine dell’inganno,
Soldano’s biographical novel about the little-
known Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz,
Soldano took the unusual decision to write
in the first person, as if he were himself the
protagonist. ‘It is a kind of metamorphosis,’ he
says. ‘I like metamorphoses.’
The insatiably curious pianist is drawn
to the obscure. In addition to Bortkiewicz’s

piano works, he has recorded the music of
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, which is very rarely
performed in his native Italy. ‘I’m like a
magnet. I allow myself to be attracted by the
music that pulls me in its direction,’ he says.
‘It is difficult to be strategic in music – for me,
at least. Music-making is not a business with a
commercial end; it is research.’
Soldano is especially attracted to the
culture of Eastern Europe and Asia. He has
nurtured a close relationship with the Bacău
orchestra in Romania, with which Soldano
has performed all of Rachmaninov’s piano
concertos, worked as a visiting professor at the
Kiev Conservatory, and learned Chinese to a
beginner’s level. ‘The East is a special place for
me. On a visit to Russia I visited the Cathedral
of Saint Sofia. I inhaled the incense and soaked
up the liturgy. In that place I felt closer to my
musical heroes such as Scriabin.’
His decision to transcribe the Rachmaninov
songs dates back to an unremarkable car
journey with his late father, the doctor and
music patron Vincenzo Soldano, during which
Anna Netrebko’s recording of one of the songs
www.international-piano.com
RECORDING FOCUS
came on the radio. ‘My dad said, “These are In contrast, Pierluigi Camicia, another of
beautiful, they would be perfect for the piano”,’ Soldano’s mentors, helped cultivate ‘elegance,
recalls Soldano. He transcribed a first song, refinement, naturalness, plasticity in the
which was distributed by a local publisher, melody’. While the lockdowns allowed
and felt he needed to continue the project. ‘It’s Soldano to develop his other interests, he
like eating cherries. You start with one, then cannot wait to get back onstage. ‘I do many
have to have more and more.’ things, but first and foremost I am a pianist.’ IP
Soldano completed bachelors and
postgraduate studies in Bari, before acquiring
a diploma at the National Academy of Santa
Cecilia in Rome under Benedetto Lupo.
He also took lessons with Aldo Ciccolini,
who first heard the 15-year-old Soldano in
a masterclass. Finding gaps in his school
schedule, he would visit Ciccolini in Paris for
three or four days at a time. The experience
provided a ‘full musical immersion’, filled
not just with playing but also conversations
about music, late nights listening to Wagner’s Alfonso Soldano’s Metamorphoses is
operas and private performances by available from Divine Art (DDA25215).
Ciccolini himself. His future recording plans include
The great Italian pianist helped invest albums of works by Liszt and Alkan, plus
Soldano’s playing with ‘tension’ and an an 8-disc box set of Scriabin’s complete
‘inner pulsation akin to life that I try to piano music. alfonsosoldano.org
internalise whenever I play,’ says Soldano.
International Piano January/February 2022 61
 REVIEWS • CDs
Critic’s choice
Beethoven
Piano Sonatas Opp 106 & 111
Angela Hewitt pf
Hyperion CDA68374
A ngela Hewitt’s liner notes are always
illuminating and here they act as both a
listener’s guide and a masterclass. She leaves
the musicology to Tovey but can’t resist a
dip into what she calls ‘one of the greatest
controversies in Beethoven scholarship’:
whether the composer really meant an A-sharp
or an A-natural in bars 224-6 in the first
movement of the Hammerklavier. She discussed
the question at length with Murray Perahia and
still couldn’t make up her mind… It’s just a tiny
twig in the thicket of that hurtling movement,
and it passes so fast that on a first listening I
couldn’t make out her answer.
ALBUM OF
THE MONTH
62 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
BY MICHAEL CHURCH
Her notes are fascinating because that they
focus on the experience of playing this music.
Young pianists will be relieved to read which
places she finds most tricky, and to learn that
she regards the coda to that movement – with
its trills on the inner parts, and with the right
hand jumping about over a distantly rumbling
bass which then itself starts jumping about
in the opposite direction – as ‘annoyingly
difficult’. Her commentary on playing the
sublime slow movement is full of hints as to
how best to render its loveliest moments: for
example, don’t drown bars 22-23 with too
much pedal, ‘otherwise you miss the rests
in the left hand that Beethoven so carefully
notated’. The closing fugue of the finale needs
to be as disciplined as a fugue by Bach. And
a pianist with imagination, she says, can
sometimes create more ‘orchestral’ sounds
than an actual orchestra.
I don’t normally follow the score of this
work as I listen to it, but doing so with Hewitt’s
recording allows one to savour the full beauty
of the effects she achieves: you sense she’s
closely interrogated every bar of the score. She
delivers the opening Allegro with a light touch
throughout, giving the movement a serene
coherence. In her entrancing account of the
Scherzo, every passing pianissimo note is
Remarkable:
Marcantonio Barone
accorded full value. Her touch in the Adagio is
tender; she brings out the wonderment in the
harmonic shifts, and the tremulous beauty of
the right-hand figurations.
Hewitt ends her cycle of Beethoven sonatas
with a gracefully conceived account of Op 111.
She only began playing it at 60 and doesn’t like
to play it often: in her view it’s one of the most
sublime piano works ever. She doesn’t have
much to say about it, but what she does say is
poetically evocative.
Mozart
Complete Piano Sonatas
Elisabeth Leonskaja pf
Warner 0190296457821 – 6 CDs
Elisabeth Leonskaja’s Mozart box offers
another masterclass, this time on the virtues
S ubtitled ‘Ten Fantasy-Pieces (after
celebrated paintings)’, this extraordinary
double album features amplified piano plus
auxiliary instruments – voice, drums and
manipulated strings.
The 92-year-old George Crumb was always
fascinated by the idea of translating visual
art into music, and Barone has long carried
a torch for his approach. Stephen Bruns’
liner note quotes Kandinsky on this implied
synaesthesia: ‘Colour is the keyboard, the eyes
are the hammers, the soul is the piano with
many strings. The artist is the hand which
plays, touching one key or another, to cause
vibrations in the soul.’
Each of the 20 movements of Metamorphosis
is inspired by a painting: Crumb hails Pictures
at an Exhibition as the first attempt at this
synthesis. And in his musical response
to Kandinsky’s celebrated painting Blaue

of emotional understatement and sonic
transparency. The pianism of this great
artist – born and trained in Soviet Tbilisi, but
now a naturalised Austrian – is the musical
equivalent of plain prose in its eschewal of
self-regarding mannerism.
The First Sonata sets the tone with a bold,
fresh, candid touch, but the Adagio of the
Second exhibits the qualities which make
this box so effective. That movement is one of
Mozart’s great tragic utterances and here its
heroic sadness is of a restrained, dare one say
masculine, kind. It took me a while to accept
the sound of a big Steinway (in a reverberant
acoustic) as a suitable medium for such intimate
music, but once over that hurdle I bowled
through the set with enormous pleasure.
Leonskaja finds drama aplenty, pre-
eminently in the Fantasia K475 and Sonata
in A minor K310, whose Allegro opens with
cheerful swagger before darkening with angry
storm-clouds and ending on a note of menace.
The Fantasia is a drama complete in itself,
beginning with the giant octaves marching
ever deeper towards the underworld, before
softening the tone with a regretful lament.
The sun comes out with a brief starburst of
virtuosity, then we return to the shrouded
melancholy of the beginning.
The Sonata in F major K280 comes with
orchestral and operatic effects while the
E-flat major K282 becomes a quintessential
expression of Mozartian poetry, its opening
movement a world unto itself, an oasis of
Reiter, Crumb includes echoes of Schubert’s
‘Erlkönig’ in what he described as a ‘frantic
and futile musical attempt to outrun death’.
The movement is rhythmically driven with
galloping figures in the bass and thick
chromatic chord clusters. It closes with a
thunderous ostinato in the left hand while the
pianist uses his right hand to strike the strings
with a stick.
Paul Klee, several of whose paintings
figure in this work, was the obvious place
to start. He had initially intended to be a
painter, was an active violinist, and after his
trip to Tunisia announced ‘colour has taken
possession of me… I know that it has taken
hold of me forever’. The figure in his painting
Black Prince is suggested by what Bruns
describes as ‘painterly gestures’ serving
as an opening incantation. The musical
representation of his Goldfish is expressed in
www.international-piano.com
perfect calm. Every note of the quaver runs in
these works is given full value, every ornament
spelt out with delicate precision. Leonskaja’s
performances bring out Mozart’s unshowy
experimentalism and elfin wit as much as his
pathos. The whole effect is companionable
and I expect to be listening to these in
preference to the other collections on my shelf.
Chopin
Andante spianato et grande polonaise
brillante Op 22; Mazurkas Op 33; Etudes
Opp 10 & 25; Nocturnes Op 27; Waltz in
A-flat major Op 42; Scherzo in E major
Op 54; Variations on Mozart’s ‘La ci darem
la mano’ Op 2
Bruce Liu pf
Deutsche Grammophon 4861555
With Poland in the hands of viciously
right-wing populists, it’s good to focus on
those parts of the state which are as yet
uncorrupted, and the Chopin Competition
remains its brightest jewel. Founded in 1927,
mercurial, brightly coloured outbursts. The
effects for the brushstrokes of the churning
blue-black sky in Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with
Crows are created with a percussionist’s
wire brush sliding over the lower strings,
while open-string effects are used to evoke
Chagall’s The Fiddler. The score for Jasper
Johns’ Perilous Night – marked ‘fearfully,
with dark energy’ – requires the damper
pedal to be held continuously so all strings
vibrate freely.
For Dali’s The Persistence of Memory, Crumb
really goes to town, including quotes from
Mozart’s clarinet concerto, Beethoven’s Op
110 and ‘Amazing Grace’ from his native
Appalachia, for which the pianist both plays
the tune and hums along with it. Barone
is clearly a remarkable pianist, though one
needs to see the images in parallel to get
the full effect.
International Piano January/February 2022
CDs • REVIEWS
it boasted early jurors including Backhaus,
Neuhaus, Szymanowski, Rubinstein,
Michelangeli and Nadia Boulanger. Meanwhile
its stars have included Vladimir Ashkenazy,
Fou Ts’ong, Maurizio Pollini, Martha
Argerich, Nelson Freire, Garrick Ohlsson and
Krystian Zimerman.
The latest winner of the competition
– postponed from 2020 because of the
pandemic – is Bruce Liu, a Canadian pianist
who studied at the Montreal Conservatoire.
This live recording shows how, and why, he
won. Liu himself attributes his success not
to thousands of hours of preparation, but to
hunting for new ideas right up until the last
minute before he went on stage. ‘It’s a bit risky,’
he says disarmingly.
But that risk has paid off handsomely with
this mixed bag of Chopin pieces. After the
poise and grace of his Andante spianato and a
swaggering account of the Grande polonaise
brillante, he infuses subtly unexpected effects
in the Op 33 Mazurkas, with delicately sprung
rubato in the first and the hint of a whip in the
second. His account of the Etude Op 10/4 is
thrilling for its speed and control. In the A-flat
major Waltz he manages to stay faithful to
the score while extracting imaginative effects,
and works confidently on the larger canvas of
the fourth Scherzo. His envoi is the Variations
on Mozart’s ‘La ci darem la mano’, to which he
brings charming and brilliant touches. With
ornamental flights which are light as gossamer,
the whole album feels deliciously airborne. IP
Crumb
Metamorphosis – Books I & II
Marcantonio Barone pf
Bridge 9551 – 2 CDs
63
 REVIEWS • CDs
HISTORIC RECORDINGS
Wilhelm Kempff: The complete Polydor
recordings 1927-1936
Works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert and
Schumann
Wilhelm Kempff pf
APR 5638
K empff was a unique visionary who shone
a supernatural light on everything he
played. Here he is heard in recordings from the
early part of his career, when his calibre was
still largely unrecognised. It offers a reminder,
as one writer put it, of the seemingly limitless
air that surrounded Kempff ’s interpretations.
No other pianist has been more delectably
light-fingered in the Gigue from Bach’s French
Suite No 5 in G, making other celebrated Bach
specialists (Tureck and Gould) seem self-
conscious and prosaic by comparison. The
Turkish Rondo from Mozart’s A major Sonata
K331 could hardly be more magically buoyant,
while in Schubert-Liszt’s ‘Ständchen’ Kempff
even outshines Liszt with his own playful,
virtuoso arrangement. How apt, too, that this
programme should end with Schumann’s
‘Traumerei’ from Kinderszenen. If ever there
Mozart Fantasy in D minor K397; Piano
Sonatas: D major K311, G major K283,
A minor K310; Rondo in A minor K511
Keiko Shichijo fortepiano
Bridge 9570
Keiko Shichijo teaches at the Fontys
Academy, Tilburg. She also specialises in
64 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
was a virtuoso of dreaming – and so much
more – it was Kempff.
This release is beyond price, so it is
heartening to know that a reissue of Kempff ’s
early Decca recordings is also on the horizon.
BRYCE MORRISON
SOLO REPERTOIRE
Schubert Piano Sonatas: E minor D157,
A major D664, D major D850
Costantino Mastroprimiano fortepiano
Dynamic CDS7906
Heard on a 2012 Andreas Restelli copy of a
Graf fortepiano, these sonatas emerge like
a restored painting. The instrument’s treble
is sweet and its entire range beautifully
balanced. That we have an interpreter of
the stature of Mastroprimiano seals the
deal: this is Schubert playing of the highest
comprehension.
Tempos are spot-on, in particular the
Andante movements of D157 and D664, which
are too often played Adagio. Volodos, on a
modern grand, sounds heavy by comparison.
D157, incidentally, is missing its finale, our
expectations untimely ripped.
contemporary music but for these Mozart
performances is playing an original Stein
fortepiano from 1802.
The three sonatas were composed or played
during the journey Mozart took to meet the
piano-maker in Augsburg in 1777. He performed
on Stein’s innovative instrument and praised its
even tone in a letter to his father. The Fantasy
and Rondo were composed later in Vienna.
The dominant ethos is Sturm und Drang.
The Stein fortepiano has clarity, crispness
and resonance, and Shichijo’s interpretation
is highly expressive and vibrant. The recording
is vividly present and conveys a sense of
intimacy – resonant but not echoey. A superb
interpretation of some of Mozart’s most
compelling works for keyboard.
ANDY HAMILTON
Hearing D664 on fortepiano emphasises
Schubert’s marriage of lyricism with
momentum. Mastroprimiano decorates the
exposition repeat to take us on a markedly
different trajectory than first time round.
The jauntiness of the finale is highly addictive.
Meanwhile, the sparkling D major D850
sounds almost improvised, featuring an
airy take on the second movement Con
moto. This bleeds beautifully into the metric
play of the Scherzo, which itself sets off the
metronomic tick-tock finale. Supremely
intelligent playing.
Mastroprimiano has previously recorded
Alkan, Clementi’s complete sonatas,
Hummel and Francesco Pollini. He is clearly
a free and deep thinker, and it shows in his
interpretations. A gem.
Schubert Piano Sonatas: D major D850,
B-flat major D960
Anne-Marie McDermott pf
Bridge 9550A/B
Instrumentally and interpretatively,
McDermott’s readings of this repertoire are
radically different from Mastroprimiano’s.
Recorded on a modern concert grand, she
offers a powerful D850 whose first movement
is awkward in places, with accents that sound
like stabs. The real Achilles’ heel, however,
is the finale, which sags under its own
interpretative weight.
When it comes to the great D960,
McDermott offers a nicely expansive first
movement, though at times she almost
loses the thread of Schubert’s argument. The
phrasing of the repeated left-hand figure
against the legato theme in the second
movement might startle some: crisp staccato
and a well-placed concluding note. It works,
yet her slightly odd rubato returns in the
finale. The result is superficially beautiful but
lacks inherent drama.
The recorded piano sound (Troy Savings
Bank Music Hall) is full-bodied, albeit a touch
too reverberant. Go to Mastroprimiano for
freshly minted Schubert.

Reflections
Works by Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Adès
Avery Gagliano pf
Steinway & Sons STNS 30171
Winner of the 2020 National Chopin
Competition of the United States, Gagliano
offers a nicely balanced programme. The Adès
Mazurkas are the highlight of the album. While
the composer himself has the final word on
these pieces, Gagliano’s nuanced and tightly
ornamented interpretation is more convincing
than Han Chen (Naxos). Setting them against
Chopin’s Op 56 Mazurkas also emphasises the
fairground mirror aspects of Adès’ writing.
Haydn’s great E-flat Sonata is the starting-
point for this journey, heard in superb sound
from Steinway & Sons. Gagliano has terrific
finger clarity and is unafraid to capture the
power of her instrument. She is similarly bold
with the sustaining pedal. Sadly, however,
overblown effects mar the Adagio and the
finale is somewhat dour. More disappointing
still is Chopin’s B minor Nocturne Op 62/1,
given here in a monochrome interpretation
with no real gradations: its closing trills verge
on the pedestrian.
A nice undercurrent of disquiet flows
through Schumann’s Abegg Variations and we
hear a lot of detail in the Chopin First Ballade,
but the positives are still too few to warrant a
recommendation.
Nightlight
Works by Mozart, Scriabin, Liszt, Schubert,
Tomkins, Evans and Schumann
Cordelia Williams pf
Somm Recordings SOMMCD 0639
www.international-piano.com
An exploration of night and the hope offered
by dawn in Schumann’s exquisite Gesänge der
Frühe, this is a disc of glorious juxtapositions.
It is dedicated to ‘people who, for whatever
reason, feel alone in the darkness’.
The opening arpeggiations of Mozart’s D
minor Fantasia K397 seem to strive for the
light, while the elemental power of Scriabin’s
Second Sonata draws inspiration from the
sea. Williams’ dexterity in the Sonata’s finale
is married with palpable unrest. Two Liszt
Consolations (S172) offer succour.
Schubert’s Sonata in C minor D958 is dark
and broodlingly intense, its finale expressing the
fevered unrest of sleepless nights. Next we hear
Tomkins’ Sad Pavan for these Distracted Times
and Bill Evans’ Peace Piece, both apt choices
that culminate in Schumann’s exploration of the
liminal state of dawn. Williams’ understanding
of this music is remarkable, if not quite the
equal interpretatively of Bavouzet. An album to
cherish.
COLIN CLARKE
PIANO CONCEROS
Rachmaninov Piano Concertos: No 2 in
C minor Op 18, No 3 in D minor Op 30
Jae-Hyuck Cho pf Russian National
Orchestra/Hans Graf
Evidence Classics 509941 SACD
Jae-Hyuck Cho is a South Korean pianist
who first came to notice about 18 years ago
following a win in the Pro Piano New York
Recital Series Auditions. He studied at the
Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard
School, where his teachers included Solomon
Mikowsky, Herbert Stessin, Jerome Lowenthal
and Nina Svetlanova.
Cho’s booklet essay reveals that
Rachmaninov’s Second and Third Concertos
hold special places in his repertoire. They
are played commendably straight to let the
music’s inherent expressivity speak for itself.
In this, Cho is helped immensely by Hans
Graf and the Russian National Orchestra, who
accompany with elan and sensitivity.
International Piano January/February 2022
CDs • REVIEWS
Cho’s tempos are relatively middle-of-the-
road, missing the vigour of Hough (Hyperion)
or Sudbin (BIS) in the Second’s opening
Moderato. In the Third Concerto, Cho is
technically precise and clear but lacking in fire
compared with the best of his modern rivals.
Cho’s teacher Nina Svetlanova may have told
him, rightly, that Rachmaninov should ‘not
be performed with vulgar, savage passion’.
Nevertheless, his account would benefit from
a touch more drive. Evidence Classics’ sound
is clear and clean.
Schnittke Concerto for piano and strings
Prokofiev Symphony No 2 in D minor Op 40
Yefim Bronfman pf Cleveland Orchestra/
Franz Welser-Möst Symphony Orchestra/
Łukasz Borowicz
The Cleveland Orchestra TCO0003
Just as the creation of the Cleveland
Orchestra’s own label (TCO) was a
consequence of the pandemic’s unexpected
arrival, so it was never their plan to record
Schnittke’s Concerto for piano and strings
(1979), the second of his concertos to feature
a solo piano.
In March 2020 (when the coronavirus
shutters started slamming down), neither
Yefim Bronfman nor the orchestra had ever
played the work. But enforced furlough
allowed them to learn new repertoire and
they livestreamed three performances of the
concerto in October that year (all participants
suitably masked). The result is a searing
experience, the players audibly gripped and
maintaining their hold on listeners until the
final notes have died away. Clocking in at just
under 20 minutes, it is also the fastest version
of the concerto currently available.
The coupling is a live recording of
Prokofiev’s Second Symphony from January
2020, captured during the orchestra’s regular
residency in Miami. The opening Allegro ben
articolato has terrific drive and even if the
ensuing variations seem armour-plated, they
are bedecked in fine raiment.
GUY RICKARDS
65
 REVIEWS • CDs
CHAMBER MUSIC
Bartók: The Quiet Revolutionary
Franziska Pietsch vln Maki Hayashida pf
Odradek ODRCD419
Violinist Franziska Pietsch is a powerful
advocate of Bartók’s music who
communicates his inner world compellingly.
She writes: ‘His music lies before us like a
volcano: rugged, forbidding, dark and cold
… a silence from beyond … a journey into
a labyrinth full of passion, energy, power,
furious rhythm, sublime melodies, ardour,
forlornness and melancholy.’
Pietsch’s new release of the composer’s
two interwar violin sonatas is a brilliantly
explosive tour-de-force. I’ve rarely heard this
music rendered so organically, its language
and structure articulated without any hint
of preciousness. Every track is golden – a
‘shattering, unconditional’ homage played with
fiery, pin-point accuracy. Pietsch’s Japanese
collaborator, Makiu Hayashida, displays a
breathtaking ear for detail, dynamics, finesse
and timing.
The 1915 Romanian Dances (Székely’s
arrangement) come up fresh-minted, each
number a vibrant cameo. Poetry and clarity,
beauty of tone and phrasing reign supreme,
whatever the demands of the moment.
Production values are superlative, the
house Steinway at Odradek’s Italian studio
responding to anything asked of it. Glorious.
From Brighton to Brooklyn
Elena Urioste vln Tom Poster pf
Chandos CHAN 20248
66 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
This ideal follow-up to Urioste/Poster’s Jukebox
Album (reviewed in Issue 76, page 60) offers
another captivating selection of repertoire for
violin and piano.
Neither the Britten (Three Pieces from the
Suite Op 6 – early composition, late revision)
nor Copland (his bluesy Pieces from 1926)
could be by anyone else: each melodic,
harmonic and rhythmic turn is unmistakeably
fingerprinted. Drawing on vernacular
Americanisms, Paul Schoenfeld’s Four Souvenirs
(1990) are gorgeously seductive and exquisitely
crafted. Amy Beach’s Three Compositions Op 40
(published 1898) and a trilogy of caressingly
tender sketches by Frank Bridge (1904-21)
reference turn-of-the-century salon elegance.
Neither Empire nor New World were ready
to assimilate Florence Price until years after
her death in 1953. An African American,
aspiring to a profession ‘blighted by both male
chauvinism and racism’ (Mervyn Cooke), her
Elfentanz may be on the bland side yet charms.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Slavic-tinged
Edwardian Ballade in C minor Op 73 (1909) is
the album’s one bravura concert work.
Urioste’s playing is nuanced and committed,
while Poster impresses with his joyous fantasy,
tonal range and versatility.
Muse
Works by Barber and Rachmaninov
Sheku Kanneh-Mason vlc
Isata Kanneh-Mason pf
Decca B0034635-02
The landmark cello sonatas of Barber and
Rachmaninov are offset here with ‘encore’
transcriptions of seven of their songs. The
restrained scale of the latter proves an
appealing foil, allowing the performers to let
their emotions go unforced.
As soon as passions are raised, however,
rhythm, tempo and ensemble suffer. Sheku’s
attack is prone to loss of quality, Isata’s to
lack of tone and variety of touch. The kind
of War and Peace theatre fundamental to
Rachmaninov as yet eludes her. She negotiates
the notes neatly enough, but at the expense of
colour and fantasy. ‘Sheku,’ we’re told, ‘imitates
a great, rich Russian voice on his instrument’.
Really? Well not on the evidence of Shafran/
Rostropovich/Georgian’s Rachmaninov. As for
Barber, Kirshbaum’s measured, structurally
coherent, less frenetic approach remains
the preferred reference (1988), along with
Piatigorsky (1947) and Bengtsson (2001).
The overall impression left by this sibling
partnership is of moments begun but not
always finished, prioritising effect over
substance. Recording balance errs towards
fogginess, cello mostly to the fore. Not the
most musical experience.
Rhythm and the Borrowed Past
Works by Bernstein and Gershwin
Daniel Kurganov vln
Constantine Finehouse pf
Orchid Classics ORC100182
This thought-provoking album seeks to
‘juxtapose two narratives: one of lost memories
and anguish, and one of openness and potential
… darkness [reaching] towards lightness’. Cage’s
Nocturne and Messiaen’s Theme and Variations
are joined by world premiere recordings of Lera
Auerbach’s Third Violin Sonata and Richard
Beaudoin’s In höchster Not (In deepest need).
Auerbach has crafted a major opus. In his
booklet notes Beaudoin suggests it is ‘not a
music of interruption; it follows through on its
ideas and does so using the most elemental of
musical objects. Her forms proceed as a series
of inevitabilities, exhibiting great rhetorical
and sonic power.’ The result is pulsatingly
forged and imaginatively eruptive.
Dating from the same year (2005), Beaudoin’s
In höchster Not is ‘marked by a constant evasion
of stabilities, by escaping whatever it temporarily
establishes’. Its taut linearity and dynamic
intensity dances fast and slow with pitch,
register and rhythm, betraying the influence of
Beaudoin’s studies with Michael Finnissy.
This short yet important release is a
wonderful example of impassioned modernism,
strikingly played and recorded.
ATEŞ ORGA

CONTEMPORARY/JAZZ
J.S. Bach/Karlheinz Essl Gold.Berg.Werk
Xenia Pestova Bennett pf
Ed Bennett live electronic spatialisation
Ergodos 33
Karlheinz Essl’s Gold.Berg.Werk (‘gold mine
work’) offers a radical new perspective on
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performed by Xenia
Pestova Bennett. After her stately interpretation
of the gorgeous Aria, the first of Essl’s live
electronic interludes comes as a shock. It is
followed immediately by the first variation.
The interludes are based on the Aria’s
harmonic progression, recorded by a string
trio. Through granular synthesis, Essl has
compressed and stretched it, extending
the harmonic spectrum through the use of
overtones. The music is diffused and spatialised
by Ed Bennett, using a small speaker inside the
piano plus speakers behind the audience.
The interludes have an impressionistic feel and
are rhythmically mostly free-floating. The order of
the variations is changed, and real-time electronic
manipulation ensures that no two performances
are the same. As the pianist comments, ‘rather
than presenting this work as a fixed artefact behind
dusty museum glass [it is viewed] as a living and
evolving organism’. The ideal listening experience
is live – spatialisation is limited on a conventional
stereo system. The project may not be to all
tastes, but richly rewards open-minded appraisal.
Mose Allison: The Complete Atlantic/
Elektra Albums 1962-1983
Mose Allison pf with various ensembles
Strawberry Records QCRJAMBOX 003 – 6 CDs
www.international-piano.com
The 12 albums Mose Allison released on
Atlantic Records and Elektra Musician
represent a classic synthesis of country
blues and urban jazz. They’re reissued in this
excellent 6-CD boxed set. Allison (1927-2016)
was born in Tippo Mississippi, and in NEA and
NPR interviews he commented on his African
American and European influences, saying
‘I’m trying to unite New Orleans and Vienna’.
He’s best-known as a singer-songwriter, but his
bluesy bebop piano style was innovative. He
commented that ‘I’m trying to play the blues
without the blues clichés’ – like his precursors
Lennie Tristano and Thelonious Monk.
This quirkily distinctive piano style is an
underrated part of Allison’s artistic achievement.
It is harmonically quite spare and serves his
singing beautifully. The mix of originals with a
sprinkling of standards includes Allison staples:
there are versions of ‘Seventh Son’ and ‘Your
Mind Is On Vacation’ on three albums.
The small number of purely instrumental
tracks, especially ‘Powerhouse’, are impressive.
But the outstanding tracks are those with
vocals – most notably ‘Somebody Gotta
Move’ and ‘I Don’t Want Much’ from Hello
There, Universe, with their wonderfully witty
lyrics. That album, with its clever large-group
arrangements, is the most impressive and
remains underrated. In contrast, the later
Middle-Class White Boy is not so tight, and the
Yamaha electric piano is on an odd setting.
But for fans of Mose, this is the set to get.
Lou Harrison Concerto for Piano with
Javanese Gamelan
Sarah Cahill pf Gamelan Galak Tika/Evan
Ziporyn and Jody Diamond
Cleveland Museum of Art Recorded Archive
Editions
Lou Harrison (1917-2003) is one of the great
East-meets-West innovators who wrote
numerous works for gamelan, yet his Concerto
is rarely performed because it involves a lengthy
and complicated process to retune the piano.
This recording was made to mark Harrison’s
centenary in 2017. It features a large percussion
International Piano January/February 2022
CDs • REVIEWS
orchestra designed by the composer,. This is
Harrison’s ‘Javanese gamelan’ built to resemble
the Javanese court gamelan, though its keys are
aluminium not bronze.
There are few performers more attuned to
and experienced in Harrison’s wonderful music.
Cahill writes that by the time he wrote the
Concerto in 1986, Harrison had found a way
to coax the piano into his ‘paradise garden of
delights’, as he described just intonation. For
the pianist, she says, it is disorienting at first,
since the conventional associations of key and
pitch are broken. Yet the appeal of the work
is such that even newcomers will appreciate
its beauty and delight in one of the greatest
achievements of late 20th-century music.
Streams
Marilyn Crispell pf Yuma Uesaka
saxophones, clarinets Chatori Shimizu shō
NotTwo MW 1010-2
Crispell, born 1947, first became known as a
member of Anthony Braxton’s Quartet. Through
playing with him, she says she ‘began to think
more compositionally and pay more attention
to space and silence’. Her ECM album of
Annette Peacock compositions, Nothing Ever
Was, Anyway (1996) brought her attention
beyond the free jazz avantgarde. She continues
to develop her lyrical approach on Streams.
The brief, lugubrious ‘Meditation’ is followed
by the spiky ‘Iterations I’. The title-track
begins as a plangent pastoral, becoming more
energetic and ecstatic. ‘Capillarity’ has a more
meditative, searching quality, while ‘Torrent’ is
furious, its uncompromising freedom bringing
Crispell’s playing close to free jazz as usually
understood.
To finish, the elegiac ‘Ma / Space’ adds
Chatori Shimizu on shō (Japanese mouth
organ). The Japanese concept ma (space) is a
trait found elsewhere on the album; this track
has a compelling, unhurried spaciousness. The
collaborators develop a sophisticated dialogue
with spontaneous counterpoint and inspired
improvisation. Highly recommended. IP
ANDY HAMILTON
67
 PRESENTS...

Exclusive CD • Foreword by Sir Andrew Davis CBE • Essential listening

This Official
150th Anniversary
VAUGHAN Publication
includes:
WILLIAMS  Exclusive CD with
26 tracks of the
recommended
recordings
A 150th anniversary
celebration of the  In-depth features on
man and his music the man and his music
 Reflections from
leading interpreters
 Listening guide to
key recordings
VAUGHAN
WILLIAMS RVW and the Bard
150th ‘Miniature gems’
Like many composers, Vaugha
n Williams was inspired
though the craft of writing by the works of Shakespeare,
incidental music to plays
writes Stephen Connock was a skill he learned on
the job,
é egg. Three
y and finesse of a Faberg
art songs with all the intimac

‘S
Vaughan Williams crafted what makes
Adrian Horsewood about hakespeare was the best friend

anniversary share their thoughts with he had’. This was the

evocation in sound of the
singers and an accompanist
view of Ursula Vaughan Williams ‘cloud-capp’d towers’ in The
when discussing as well as reflecting in music: Tempest,
her late husband’s love of the ‘We are such stuff as dreams
playwright and poet in
these works so special 1998. Vaughan Williams had
a child when he was given
first discovered Shakespear
e as
are made on, and our little
responded to the compassion
life is rounded with a sleep.
’ VW
the complete edition by Caroline , the insight, the humour and
the
for as long as I can remember, Darwin. He re-read all the nobility of Shakespeare. He
2022): ‘I’ve sung his music plays in 1951, counting The also recognised that Shakespear

F
Williams occupies prime
or many, Ralph Vaughan
position in the pantheon
of English art-song
composers; there can be
scarcely a singer or
Lea’,
know ‘Silent Noon’, ‘Linden
enthusiast who does not to
with so many other aspects
or ‘The Vagabond’. But as
music, delving past the best-
Vaughan Williams’s life and the
layers and threads that run
known songs reveals hidden
career.
whole length of the composer’s , active singer, his love for
heart of the English song canon’
RVW is ‘the beating
On
Spence, fresh from recording
according to tenor Nicky April
label (release date:
Wenlock Edge for the Hyperion
SIMON VAN BOXTEL
love
of my repertoire. What I
and it’s always been a staple realise
to working on them you
is that when you get down
so much more than just the
that there is real depth there, all
ring, pastoral composer that we
image of the tweed-wea
know.’
whose RVW
For baritone Roderick Williams,
most extensive of any currently
discography is perhaps the from his long
the songs sprang
part of the composer’s output:
association with another
Williams’s music through
‘I first got to know Vaughan
Roderick Williams,
who has an extensive
discography of RVW
songs, was introduced
to the genre ‘by stealth’
through the choral works
final movement of the Sixth
Merry
Wives of Windsor,
Windsor Richard II and Henry
V as his favourites.
He began setting Shakespear
e’s words to music in the 1890s,
including Sonnet 71 and ‘O
Mistress Mine’ from Twelfth
Night.
He went on to compose Sir
John in Love (completed in
1928)
with a libretto by the composer
based on The Merry Wives
of Windsor
Windsor, the lovely Serenade
to Music (1938) with lines
from the last act of The Merchant
Thanksgiving (1945) which
of Venice, and the Song of
included extracts from Henry
V.
Overall, VW was to set Shakespear
e’s texts, or write incidental
music to the plays, over 20
times throughout his long
career.
Shakespeare also seems to
have influenced the remarkable
Symphony (1947), in part
an
e
was thoroughly musical, a
writer who thought deeply
about
music. VW took Shakespear
e’s many references to English
folk-ballads as supporting
his own ‘national’ approach
to
music: ‘Shakespeare makes
an international appeal for
the
very reason that he is so national
and English in his outlook,
’
he wrote in December 1944.
Against this background, VW
by Archibald Flower on behalf
was excited at the invitation
of (Sir) Frank Benson to
conduct the orchestra as well
as write and arrange incidental The statue of
music to a number of Shakespear Stratford-upon-Avon’s
e plays for the August 1912 famous playwright
and April-May 1913 seasons
at Stratford. Benson (1858-1939
)
William Shakespeare
was an actor-manager who towers over that of
founded his own company
spring of 1883, managing in the one of his best-known
the Stratford Shakespearean characters, Henry V–

FREE
TONY CRADDOCK Festival a favourite of RVW

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION £14.99

1872 – 1958
1872 – 1958 CD choirandorgan.com

A 150th anniversary celebration

Order your copy for £14.99 (including free P&P for UK orders)
Visit www.magsubscriptions.com/vaughan-williams
Call: 0800 137201 (UK) or +44 (0)1722 716997 (Overseas)

Géza Anda: Pianist – A panorama on
his 100th birthday
Wolfgang Rathert
Wolke Verlag, 160 pages
T
he Hungarian pianist Géza Anda,
whose centenary was celebrated in
2021, combined cool keyboard mastery
with a voluble, paprika-laden personality. A
Magyar bundle of nerves whose two-pack-
a-day cigarette habit led to premature death
from oesophageal cancer, Anda was feted
for elegant performances of Bartók’s piano
concertos as well as being the first to conduct
Mozart’s complete concertos on record from
the keyboard. Doing so, as rehearsals in
a 1965 cinéma vérité documentary by UK
filmmaker Richard Leacock show, Anda
aggressively scolded woodwind players
as if trying to start a pub fight.
At the same time, he was capable of
lofty smoothness in his personal life,
which led to elevation into a social class
in Switzerland not ordinarily accessible
to a mere piano player. Anda’s second
wife, heiress to the fortune of the Swiss
arms dealer and Second World War
profiteer E G Bührle, later established a
foundation in Anda’s honour which runs
a prestigious piano competition. Now
the Zurich-based foundation has issued
this breezy bilingual portrait in German
and English to celebrate the performer on
his centenary.
Without such promotion, it is uncertain
whether Anda’s keyboard virtues, ranging
from clarity to scrupulousness, would
continue to transfix the public. His
nicotine addiction, which made him
require that lit ciggies be waiting for him in
www.international-piano.com
the wings wherever he gave recitals, did not
translate to jittery performances. Instead, they
contributed to an overall image as a masterful
dandy of the keyboard.
In a preface, Gerhard Oppitz claims that
Anda had an ‘overwhelming grasp of the
power of poetry in music,’ and the conductor
Wilhelm Furtwängler, before noisily falling
out with Anda, termed him a ‘troubadour
of the piano’. Yet Anda was by no means
an unbridled bard. Instead, his rational
dominance of the art form was at times
curiously disembodied. This sometimes
led to performances on automatic pilot,
especially when conducted by Herbert von
Karajan, another musician whose ideal was to
incarnate an expensive driverless car.
If Anda was a poet, he was a tightly
controlled and polished one, akin to T S Eliot.
And like Eliot, Anda was guilty of expressions
of anti-Semitism. This biography notes that
Anda opted to move to wartime Berlin in 1941
to launch his career by hobnobbing socially
with top Nazis. Hoping to impress Goebbels
and Goering, Anda remained there for two
years before deciding to move again, this time
to neutral Switzerland, likely seeing which way
the wind was blowing.
Decades later, he published The Foundations
of Music in Human Consciousness, a diatribe
against modern music, especially the Second
Viennese School, which was ‘also riddled with
anti-Semitic outbursts,’ as his biographer puts
Géza Anda with Clara Haskil in 1955
International Piano January/February 2022
BOOKS • REVIEWS
it. This was deeply hypocritical, given that
Anda claimed to owe his musicianship to the
Jewish theory and composition instructor
Leó Weiner at the Budapest Academy, not to
mention his celebrated performances with the
Romanian Jewish keyboard artist Clara Haskil.
After the war, Anda rubbed elbows with exiled
musicians at events in West Cumberland, UK
sponsored by Sir Nicholas Sekers, a Hungarian
Jewish textile magnate and arts patron.
Anda’s anti-Semitism is baldly stated here,
but left unanalysed, so the reader is left to
speculate on motivations. Unexamined are
touching archival letters in which Clara Haskil
wrote to her sister Lili about 1950s recording
sessions for the Mozart Concerto for Two
Pianos in E-flat major K365. Haskil noted
that Anda’s keyboard touch was sometimes
more hammered and emphatic than her
own, but otherwise it all seemed to be played
by a single person. In October 1954, Haskil
confided to Lili that Anda was pleasant and
upfront, but working with him was a bit
complicated because he was always talking.
Anda constantly harried Haskil, always prey
to doubts about the security of her technique,
about accents, rests and overaccelerating
tempos. Yet conductor Joseph Keilberth
once complained that Anda ‘hurries like
all Hungarians’.
These and other paradoxes merit
profounder investigation, rather than the
glossy but uncritical homages that Anda
has hitherto received. We are told about
Anda’s teacher Stefániai Imre that ‘the
man was not unproblematic’ (Menschlich
(
nicht unproblematisch),
unproblematisch whatever that
means. An ‘authoritarian side to Anda’s
personality’ is also alluded to, without
much elaboration. Perhaps this refers to
his vocal contempt for students, scorned
for not having ‘learned to play the piano
properly’ or his habit of overegging the
pudding at marathon concerts with
both Brahms piano concertos in a
single evening, a bad idea which other
performers have tried, starting with
Eugen d’Albert. Or a 1957 Munich concert
where Anda played all three Bartók
concertos in one go.
An intriguing life then, akin to Anda’s
own advice to pupils that the beginning
of each work is like a ‘meadow on to
which the performer treads’. As this
biography shows, piano lovers who
venture into unfamiliar pastures should
be wary of slipping on cow dung. IP
BENJAMIN IVRY
69
 REVIEWS • SHEET MUSIC
Johannes Brahms and
His Friends
Breitkopf & Härtel EB8303
T his collection is a treasure
trove of fascinating
discoveries. Beginning with
Brahms’ fiendishly demanding
transcription of the Scherzo from
Schumann’s Piano Quintet, the
collection continues with Clara
Schumann’s tenderly crafted Three
Romances Op 22 and ventures
into the works of figures who have
largely been forgotten by history.
Karl Georg Peter Grädener
(1812-83) lived near Hamburg
and is represented by two
pieces from his Op 5 Fliegende
Blätter: a fleeting filigree study in
semiquavers plus a lyrical number
that sounds almost Brahmsian
and is useful for practising rotary
technique. The legendary violinist
Joseph Joachim’s Versuch eines
Tanzes looks and sounds like a
foreshortened Brahms Ballade
and would be a rewarding choice
for post Grade 6 players.
Albert Dietrich (1829-1908)
is remembered today as the
composer of the first movement
of the celebrated F-A-E Sonata
for violin and piano (the other
authors being Schumann and
Brahms himself). Dietrich’s Canon
is an exquisite and intimately
considered contrapuntal
miniature that displays lyricism
and sonorous warmth. Equally
convincing is his A major
Klavierstück Op 2, which evokes a
distant string quartet.
Though certainly well-
crafted, the samples from Julius
70 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Otto Grimm (1827-1903) are
less individual, while the Op
2 Novellette from Felix Otto
Dessoff (1835-1892) basks in a
post-Mendelssohnian world of
nostalgia. The G minor Fantasie of
Ernst Rudorff (1840-1916) floats
and beguiles with textures that
could be handled with ease by
players of Grade 6/7 level.
Max Bruch’s solo piano works
are now rather obscure, but
on the evidence of his thrilling
Fantasiestück this is a great
shame. It is a substantial eight-
page bravura piece that could
be used by enterprising advance
players to bedazzle their listeners.
Theodor Kirchner (1823-1903)
is beloved in pedagogical circles
as the composer of charming
miniatures for less experienced
pianists. His Sieben Waltzes
remind one of the beloved
Brahms Waltzes in their solo
piano version. Perhaps these
Kirchner pieces could be useful
for players getting ready to tackle
the Brahms set as their technical
demands are not quite so high.
Kirchner’s transcriptions of
Brahms’ songs would certainly
be manageable and satisfying
for Grade 8 players. In particular,
‘Wie bist du, meine Königin’ offers
a taste of expansive richness and
exquisite melancholy for pianists
to explore and own.
The collection is completed
with music by Heinrich and
Elisabeth von Herzogenberg.
Reminders of Brahms’
Intermezzos and Capriccios
permeate the music of both
authors, though quality is not to
be denied in the intense Allegro
appassionato from Elisabeth’s
Drei Klavierstücke. I also took
great delight in tackling the quasi-
Hungarian dance rhythms of the
Allegretto from Heinrich’s Zwei
Klavierstücke. Finally, the theme
of Robert Schumann’s last work,
the so-called Ghost Variations is
presented on its own, evidently
published as such by Brahms
himself – a moving conclusion to
a beautifully ordered anthology.
Finer in Minor,
Greater in Major
Breitkopf & Härtel EB9416
H ere we have two generously
packed anthologies of pieces
from the Baroque era to the
present day, ranging in difficulty
from Grades 4 to 7. The major
keys volume is a new release
of 33 pieces, mainly rarities,
which are both fascinating and
useful. Many of the composers
represented were previously
only dictionary names to me. I
particularly enjoyed exploring
the inner melody challenges
of Jean-François Dandrieu’s
Les Tourbillons as well as the
Classical elegance of neat
pianistic couplets found in
Johann Georg Witthauer’s Allegro
scherzando (1792). Johann
Nicolaus Tischer’s Le triomphe
and Georg Christoph Wagenseil’s
Divertimento are excellent for
developing digital control and
dexterity, while Daniel Hellbach’s
Pop Prelude is invaluable for
encouraging technical freedom.
The minor keys book (also
33 pieces) is reissued here due
to popular demand, and it
includes many winning numbers.
Momentum is built systematically
in that the opening Telemann
Fugue in G minor leads directly to
JS Bach’s ‘lute’ Prelude in C minor,
then on to the slightly more
challenging CPE Bach Solfeggietto.
Other popular pieces such as
Benda’s Sonatina in A minor are
supplemented by rarities such as
the exquisite Shepherd’s Lament
by Johann Friedrich Reichardt.
Chausson
Sonate
Muse Press
F rench composer Amédée-
Ernest ChaussonChausson
(1855-1899) wrote some attractive
miniatures for piano as well
as substantial chamber works
involving the piano and other
instruments, notably his Concert
for Violin, Piano and String
Quartet Op 21.
This early Sonata in F minor
is such a curiosity that it is not
even listed in most standard
sources for Chausson. Unlike
other early Chausson pieces
that show the strong influence
of Massenet, it is a substantial
four-movement score that sounds
like the reduction of a Classical
symphony. Editor Enoki Masanori
sees the influence of sonatas
by Beethoven and Schubert
throughout and has done a
splendid job in correcting around
50 passages where accidentals
and minor details were unclear or
carelessly presented.
Overall, the work would benefit
from pruning. In particular, the
extended Adagio sostenuto
outstays its welcome, while
textures in the outer movements
are on the heavy side. Large
hands are needed to manage
the prevalent sequential
passagework.
This is an historically
interesting release but its
potential as concert material is
arguably more limited. IP
BY MURRAY McLACHLAN
 presents 2021 winner

Trio Bohémo
Sunday 20 February 2022 at 3pm
30th Anniversary Concert

Matouš Pěruška violin Kristina Vocetková cello

Jan Vojtek piano
Piano trios by
Dvořák, Haydn
and Liszt
London SW1P 3HA Performed in the round
Tickets £20 (students £10) by phone: 020 7222 1061
Online: sjss.org.uk/whats-on
Supported by The Tertis Foundation/The Adrian Swire Charitable Trust

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 REVIEWS • CONCERTS
In concert
Royal Danish Academy of Music
Bent Sørensen La sera estatica
– world premiere
Katrine Gislinge 12 November
B
ent Sørensen’s first piano concerto, La
Notte (‘The Night’), appeared in 1998, a
joint commission from the Danish and
British Broadcasting Corporations dedicated
to Rolf Hind. After the night came the
morning: the composer’s second concerto La
Mattina was written in 2009 for his friend Leif
Ove Andsnes, whose recording of the piece
was released last year.
Sørensen has skipped lunchtime and
afternoon to bring us a third concerto, La
sera estatica (‘The Ecstatic Evening’), first
performed at this concert in Copenhagen. An
even closer relationship defines this piece,
which was written for the composer’s pianist
wife Katrine Gislinge.
During the lockdowns of 2020, Gislinge
would play evening recitals for her husband
in their apartment. The next day Sørensen
would travel to his studio across Copenhagen
to work on his new concerto, with fragments
of the Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninov
played the night before drifting around his
head. These were, explains Sørensen, ecstatic
evenings in every sense – musical, but also
luminous, as the evening light that shrouded
these domestic recitals changed through the
course of the year.
72 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
KATRINE HØRUP NOER/RITZAU/PA IMAGES
Intimacy and conviction:
Katrine Gislinge
The concerto sounds like Sørensen – and yet Philharmonic with more music written by
doesn’t. There is the swaying and throbbing, husbands for spouses. After the interval,
the moments of emotionally charged stasis, Storgårds conducted a robust, fast but boomy
the woodwind cooing, the passing fragments performance of Schumann’s Symphony No 4,
of diatonic harmony and rhetorical gesture written as a birthday gift for Clara.
(recollections of those recitals). A theatrical The concert opened with Clara’s own
moment typical of the composer sees the Three Romances for violin and piano, in a
conductor pick up a violin to spar with the new orchestration for chamber orchestra by
pianist in a second cadenza. This performance Benjamin de Murashkin. If this otherwise
was led by the experienced violinist-conductor charming arrangement could also sound
John Storgårds, though Sørensen says the congested at times, at least it was in the spirit
piece can also be conducted by a maestro who of Schumann R. It also gave us a tantalising
doesn’t play the violin. snippet of another talent: the Copenhagen
But the torrent of notes that opens the Phil’s new 22-year-old concertmaster Roberta
piece – and the rhapsodic energies that course Verna, who took her own fleeting solo with
through its opening pages – mark something style. IP
of a new departure for Sørensen. This concerto ANDREW MELLOR
seems altogether more homophonic and less
calligraphic than its predecessors. Where
there is passagework for the soloists, it tends
towards the rapid and expressive more than
the brooding and introspective. A highlight
was the passage approximating a central
slow movement, featuring haunting oboe
solos (Gislinge’s father was a noted oboist)
and the aerated, spacious soundworld that is
Sørensen’s own.
Gislinge plays her husband’s music with a
rare sense of intimacy and conviction. La sera
LARS SKAANING
estatica will doubtless reveal itself fully over
time, and is sure to make its way on to a
recording soon. It was neatly contextualised
at this concert from the Copenhagen Grawemeyer Award-winning Bent Sørensen
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 MUSIC OF MY LIFE
INTERVIEW BY JEREMY NICHOLAS
Long lines
Russian pianist Yulia
Chaplina explains how
listening to Frank Sinatra
helped her play Rachmaninov
I
t’s a controversial recording, but I was
blown away by the sheer force of Volodos
in Rach 3. It was something as a girl that
I remember very vividly, listening to it and
thinking, ‘This is like a waterfall, a huge wave of
sound, and the way he does the octaves in the
coda…’ It’s not about his interpretation but the
effect I got from his power. It was a revelation
because the energy, the chords, the technique
were unbelievable. I was struggling at the
time as a teenage girl wondering what was
feminine, what was masculine in music, and
this recording made me realise I could be more
powerful in my playing, more forceful. So while
there are recordings of this work with more
colours and nuance, it had a profound effect
on the way I play the piano. I started playing
more Liszt, more Rachmaninov, developing
my chordal technique, my octave technique. It
triggered quite a significant change.
I was one of the last students of
Rostropovich. I had a lesson with him on
the Tchaikovsky First Concerto at Moscow’s
Vishnevskaya Opera Centre. The first time I
entered the room to meet him – I was in my
early teens and my father was with me – he
said, ‘Ah, beautiful name, beautiful girl’. It was
magic, a really nice way to start the lesson!
But the recording is special because I have it
signed. I don’t have it here, it’s in Russia, and I
wanted him to talk a little bit about it, but he
said no, this is your lesson, let’s not waste time
about me. So humble. He is such a figure. Any
of his recordings would do.
If I can ever move people like Horowitz did,
I would be happy. Just 10 per cent of what he
did would be enough! His Moscow recording
is so moving, so warm. Every single piece
starting from Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin... I was
listening to it just before we spoke, to check – is
it that good? Yes! Maybe the top of everything.
It was one of the first CDs – or perhaps it was
a cassette – that my parents and I listened
74 January/February 2022 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
to, and I just couldn’t breathe. I recently read
a book that talked about him being nasty,
taking drugs and so on. I didn’t want to know.
I couldn’t continue reading. My parents had
a lot of LPs of pianists, primarily Russian –
Sofronitsky, Horowitz, Pletnev, Richter, Gilels
– which was magical. My mother was a pianist
who studied at the Moscow Conservatoire and
had lessons with Naum Shtarkman. He came
third in the [1958] Tchaikovsky Competition,
the year Van Cliburn won. He was put in prison
for being gay, but later he was a professor at the
Conservatory. I also studied with him a little bit.
Frank Sinatra was always there for me.
You know? It’s that voice. Can someone calm
you down? I think Frank Sinatra can calm
you down. It’s that idea that all will be fine
in the end. The silky quality of his voice – it’s
mesmerising. When I listen to him I kind of
stop and start swaying. I must listen to him
now because my life at the moment is a bit
pressured. He will send me into the right zone.
Our time on this planet is too short!
The Gipsy Kings – oh my goodness! I love
their free, Latino-gypsy energy. It sounds so
cheesy but when I hear Bamboleo I am on
the beach and I’m relaxed. Whereas classical
music makes me think and analyse and
become professional, this is when I let go. I
love to dance. Growing up I used to watch the
films of Antonio Banderas – dramatic love
stories with lots of dancing. It’s a very girly
sort of thing, I think! Let’s say they appeal
to my feminine side. Have they changed the
way I play? No. But Sinatra, the silky voice
and the way he phrases – such long lines – is
also what you need to play Rachmaninov. A
lot of pianists do not have a good legato or
strong sense of phrasing. And Rachmaninov
has enormous phrasing. That’s where Sinatra
comes in: a sense of never ending. IP
Rachmaninov
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Berliner Philharmoniker/James Levine
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Cello Concertos
Mstislav Rostropovich vlc London
Philharmonic Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini
Warner Classics 9029589228
Horowitz in Moscow
Vladimir Horowitz pf
DG E4194992
My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra
Reprise 93624671022
The Very Best of Gipsy Kings
Sony 5099752021727
 PIANO | FESTIVAL | COMPETITION

22 TO 28 OCTOBER 2022
CANADA’S INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION

“The Honens International Piano Competition, based in Canada,

prides itself on awarding accomplished pianists who are complete
musicians. This may seem a lofty claim, but the Honens has a long
list of thoughtful awardees to back it up.”—The New York Times

FOLLOW THE JOURNEY | HONENS.COM/2022

Jon Kimura Parker
Artistic Director