No. 67 • May/June 2020 • £5.

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EXPERT ADVICE FOR EVERY PIANO ENTHUSIAST

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LARS
VOGT
Illuminating the darkness
in Brahms’ concertos

NAKED
ICONOCLAST
Friedrich Gulda – Austria’s
wild and wilful talent

GOING DIGITAL
Pianists reach out to
audiences online
05
ISSN 2042−0773

PLUS
9 772042 077012

Why are we so quick to criticise star performers on social media?

Scarlatti specialist Carlo Grante shares his interpretative insights

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 CONTENTS

18
5 EDITORIAL
Virtual virtuosos
6 LETTERS
Your thoughts and comments
9 NEWS & NOTES
Pianists and promoters reach out to digital
audiences ••• Chetham’s Summer School
moves online ••• Primephonic launches on-
demand radio service
12 ONE TO WATCH
American pianist Avery Gagliano
14 IN BLACK AND WHITE
Putting piano mishaps into perspective
16 ILL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
Why are audiences so quick to judge
pianists on social media?
GIORGIA BERTAZZI

26 PERSONAL TOUCH
Peter Jablonski introduces his new album
of Scriabin mazurkas

54 30
28 PIANOS ON EVERY PIAZZA
Jed Distler discovers there’s more to
Cremona than violins
30 GRAND DESIGNS
IP puts Casio’s latest digital pianos to the test
32 GOING DIGITAL
How are pianists responding to the
coronavirus lockdown?
35 SOUND TRUTHS
Murray McLachlan considers the pros and
cons of technical exercises

SHEET MUSIC
38-47 REPERTOIRE FOCUS
Scarlatti’s Sonata in E major K216
32
38 Masterclass by Carlo Grante
41 Know the score
49 NEW MUSIC
Alan Bullard’s Twelve or irteen
MASHA MOSCONI

TERESA DE LUCA
Preludes

56 SONATAS ON THE SKI SLOPES

Daniel Barenboim headlines Andermatt
Winter Festival
58 IN CONCERT
SPECIAL FEATURES
Live reviews from London 18 TALES FROM THE 54 COMPETITION CARNAGE
62 REFINED TASTES DARK SIDE A Parisian jury picks the wrong
New piano recordings from a French Lars Vogt revels in the complex winner, sending audience
boutique label with a mission psychological narratives of members wild
64-72 NEW RELEASES Brahms’ concertos
CDs, books and sheet music 60 VOICE OF SILENCE
23 NAKED ICONOCLAST Celebrating the meditative
74 MUSIC OF MY LIFE
Javier Perianes admires the elegant playing
Unorthodox Austrian pianist and miniatures of solitary Catalan
of Alicia de Larrocha and Dinu Lipatti classical music rebel Friedrich Gulda composer Federico Mompou

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 3

 EDITOR’S NOTE

Virtual virtuosos

W
hat a di erence a month can make. e
Festivals 2020 preview we published in April is
already out of date, with many if not all of the
events now cancelled. Needless to say, it s a
very di cult time for everyone but I hope you and your
loved ones are keeping safe and well.
On a more positive note, the crisis has prompted a
welcome spate of online activity and creativity from
musicians around the world. anks to the wide
availability of relatively cheap technology, many of
us now have access to equipment for broadcasting
and viewing live streams and recordings. e result
is a plethora of fantastic music-making available
24 hours a day to anyone in the world with a
decent internet connection, ranging from paid-
for broadcasts on digital channels to free events
o ered by leading classical music institutions and
entrepreneurial artists.
In this issue we meet four pianists who are presenting
free online performances to cheer people and provide
solace during these dark days (see page 32). ey have all
received very positive feedback from fans and are happy to
be doing what they can to help. At the same time, they are
concerned about the nancial impact of the lockdown and
what it will mean for music in the long term.
is is a concern for us all. Indeed, due to the disruption
caused by the outbreak of COVID-19, we will be publishing
bimonthly issues of International Piano as a temporary measure for
May/June and July/August. To ensure subscribers don t miss out,
we will extend your subscription term to guarantee you receive
the full number of issues for which you have paid. In case of
any queries about your subscription, please
feel free to contact our customer services team
on +44 (0)1722 716997 or email
subscriptions@markallengroup.com.
In the meantime, do also visit our website and sign
up to receive IPs monthly e-newsletter. Our news feed
includes listings of online piano events which will
be kept updated, and we will be posting regularly on
Facebook and Twitter.
ank you for your support during this period.
Owen Mortimer, Editor
International Piano#ŁııºßØæıææŒłæŁ
pianists and piano fans around the world, from dedicated amateurs
æłŁæıØŁææŁºŁıæ$æ
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.

@IP_mag fb.com/internationalpiano

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www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 5

 LETTERS
Write to ,
email or twet . Star letrs
will receive a fre CD from Hyperion’s best-seling Romantic Piano Concertos series
LEADING LADY
I was happy to read your recent
article about Maria Szymanowska
(IP March, Polish pioneer , page
24). However, I was surprised to
see her compositions described
rather dismissively as salon
miniatures, highly fashionable for
performance . I don t agree. Her
two larger works (Caprice sur la
romance de Joconde and Fantasie)
are intended for virtuosos. Her
20 etudes are bold harmonic and
textural experiments that lie well
beyond reach of amateurs. ese
are clear forerunners of Chopins
etudes and preludes. Elements
borrowed from her output are
found literally everywhere in
Chopins music. Interestingly,
she composed and published
the largest collection (24) of
›
›
6 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Maria
Szymanowska
(1789-1831)
mazurkas before Chopin. While
indeed many of her smaller works
are very conventional, the core
of her output is of truly artistic
quality.
Slawomir Dobrzanski,
via email, Professor of Music,
Kansas State University
FREE FOR ALL
Please stop encouraging
professional pianists, desperate
› ›
for attention in an ever shrinking
and competitive world of classical
music, to give free recitals. ey
are destroying an already fragile
marketplace and ruining it for
everyone else who rely on sales
of recordings and concert tickets
to earn a modest living. ink of
all the young pianists starting
out: they won t necessarily have
the Steinways, sound equipment
and non-shared accommodation
of rich, successful pianists who
can a ord to give away their
performances. You would be
acting more responsibly if you
encouraged the piano-loving
public to buy recordings by
their favourite pianists online,
and leave the sharing of free
performances to amateurs.
Barbara Moody, via email
›
SPONSORED BY
e editor replies:
Several leading pianists have
chosen to o er performances
online while current venue
closures prevent them from giving
live concerts. My article on page
32 of this issue explores their
motives in more detail. Personally,
I support any move that makes
great music more accessible, but
will return to your concerns in a
future issue of the magazine.
ERRATUM
Peter Dohonoes Personal Touch
article in our April issue ( Pinnacle of
perfection, page 28) incorrectly stated
that he decided to devote himself to
recording Mozarts piano sonatas
while on tour in Colombia, US . is
should have read Medell n, Colombia.
Apologies to the author and our readers
for this geographical mix-up.
 HERCEG NOVI, MONTENEGRO

Rigoletto
by Giuseppe Verdi

CHETHAM’S INTERNATIONAL
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 Exploring Bach’s keyboard music offers enormous pleasure, but
to play Bach and other early composers, we cannot simply read
the notes on the page. Notation and the conventions underlying
it in Bach’s day, were very different from those of today.
A deeper understanding of this can not only bring us closer to
the mindset of a musician like Bach, but will open surprising
opportunities for flexibility, freedom, and the rewards of
personal expression.
‡7KHDXWKRU¶VUHVHDUFKLVRYHUZKHOPLQJ3URYLGHGWKHUHDGHU
LVSUHSDUHGWRUROOXSKLVRUKHUVOHHYHVWKLVERRNJLYHVWKH
SHUIRUPHUDZHDOWKRILQIRUPDWLRQLQDSUDFWLFDODQGQRQGLGDFWLF
ZD\ZKLFKZLOOEHQHILWDOONH\ERDUGSOD\HUVSLDQLVWVLQFOXGHG·
Stephen Kovacevich

For details, reviews, and to buy online, visit

www.didbach.co.uk

www.stonerecords.co.uk @stonerecordslimited @stonerecordsltd @stonerecordslimited


Pianists and promoters reach out to audiences online
A
FELIX BROEDE
s concerts across the world
are cancelled and artists
face strict social distancing and
self-isolation measures, many are
taking to the web to share their
music-making with audiences.
Among the most engaging
and personal of all these online
initiatives are the house concerts
given by Igor Levit, live-streamed
every evening at 7pm CET (6pm
in the UK) via Twitter. Levit
launched the concerts from his
living-room as an act of solidarity
during di cult times. Calling
the move an experiment , he
explained, e idea of listening to
and experiencing music together
is gone for now. It s necessary,
yet so sad. But it s ok. Still, Id like
to continue sharing music with
you. After the opening concert,
the pianist tweeted: I have
probably never felt the actual
life-saving meaning of music
and sound before not in this
existential dimension of today.
ank you for allowing me to
share this with you. is is what
keeps my inner light burning
these days.
Another prominent musician
joining Levit in broadcasting from
home is Boris Giltburg who is
streaming live lunchtime recitals
every Monday and Wednesday
at 1pm CET (12pm in the UK)
on Twitter and Facebook. He ll
also be giving recitals on the
Fridays when he isn t adding a
new sonata to his Beethoven
32 project: a year-long quest to
learn and lm all of Beethovens
piano sonatas in celebration of
the composer s 250th anniversary.
Meanwhile, Lise de la Salle
is running Con nement Live
events every Tuesday and
www.international-piano.com
NEWS
Igor Levit: ‘This is what keeps my inner light burning these days’
Saturday at 7pm CET (6pm UK)
via her Facebook page. Audience
members are invited to submit
questions which De la Salle will
answer during the live sessions.
For those in search of more
recherchØ repertoire Junction
Piano Trio pianist Conrad
Tao has uploaded a streamed
performance to Facebook of
Frederic Rzewski s jazzy epic
e People United Will Never
Be Defeated 36 variations
on a Chilean protest song and
anthem of unity. It s a charming
video, recorded with Tao in
total lockdown in his New York
Studio (spot the red balloon
hanging from the ceiling) and
NOTES
in a very relaxed, chatty mood.
e Rzewski is preceded by Bach
(which makes sense when you
hear it), and Tao plays the Chilean
song on which the variations are
based. is is wonderful music-
making at its most intimate.
Other homemade broadcasts
come from Canadian pianist
Angela Hewitt, whose daily
posts on Facebook mainly feature
works by Bach, and Julian
Jacobson s Co ee Piano Moment
at 11am BST every morning,
available via his Twitter page and
video app Periscope.
In case youre feeling gloomy
and stressed as the weeks of
con nement roll on, several
International Piano May/June 2020
streaming sites are geared
towards maintaining our mental
health: Russian pianist Yulia
Chaplina has launched a free
online video series featuring light
and positive repertoire designed
to help listeners feel better.
She says a lot of her upcoming
concerts have been cancelled,
so this activity is great for my
wellbeing too! Meanwhile, every
Friday Christina McMaster
will post a new video combining
music, meditation and restorative
yoga as part of her ongoing
initiative Lie Down + Listen .
If its the full concert hall
experience youre missing,
however, the LSO and Sir Simon
Rattle have launched Always
Playing , an initiative that o ers
archive concert recordings
streamed at the orchestras usual
concert times of 7:30pm BST on
ursdays and 7pm on Sundays.
May s programme was still to be
announced as IP went to press,
but major piano concertos have
been part of the mix so far.
Speaking of piano concertos,
a new online concert series of
winners from the Hastings
International Piano Concerto
Competition is now available
(see News in Brief below).
Meanwhile, keeping up the
competitive edge, every
Wednesday and Saturday (times
and artists to be announced
each week), you can relive some
of the best moments of the Van
Cliburn International Piano
Competition in a global watch
party a chance to remember
the early successes of some of
the most stellar names in today s
piano rmament, caught at their
freshest, adrenaline- lled best.
9
 NEWS & NOTES
Chetham’s Piano Summer
School moves online
C hethams International Summer
School and Junior Academy will
be taking place online in August
this year, in what, according to the
organisers, could be the world s rst
online piano summer school.
ough we had several hundred
applications for the 2020 course,
in recent weeks as COVID-19
Murray McLachlan and Kathryn Page
Historical instrument collection
modelled for Pianoteq
M odartt has released a new
instrument pack
Karsten Collection for their
e
Pianoteq piano modelling software.
e pack features ve historical
keyboard instruments from the
collection of Peter Karsten. All were
built between 1600 and 1858.
Karsten is an engineer and
academic specialising in acoustics.
He has been collecting instruments
for many years, and is based in
Braunschweig (Brunswick), Lower
Saxony, Germany. e town has
strong connections to the piano
industry. Grotrian-Steinweg and
Wilhelm Schimmel are both based
in Braunschweig.
Karsten himself was involved
in the process of modelling his
instruments, which include
virginals, square pianos and
10 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
wreaked havoc across the globe,
these all but came to a stop, said
Murray McLachlan, artistic director
of the Summer School. As a new,
concerned stream of emails and
phone calls came in equiring about
cancellations, my wife Kathryn had
a brain wave: Chethams will not
surrender! We will go online and
o er wonderful opportunities to
the piano loving community on an
international scale just as in the
previous 19 years of our existence.
Most of the teachers and
performers booked to appear at
the Summer School have been
completely supportive , says
McLachlan, while the response
from participants already enrolled
on the course has been fabulous.
Dates for the Summer School
remain unchanged: Junior
Academy: 8-13 August | CIPPS Part
One: 14-20 August | CIPPS Part
Two: 20-26 August
www.pianosummerschool.com
fortepianos, by helping with
the initial recordings and audio
analysis. During the nal stages, an
additional team of musicians with
knowledge of historical keyboards
provided additional expertise.
Some of these keyboards are over
400 years old and their condition
varies, but Modartt has adjusted
each model so the instruments
sound as they would have when
brand new a feat not possible
using sample technology rather
than physical modelling.
Pianoteq is a virtual core
instrument for MacOS, Windows
and Linux. It physically models
acoustic pianos, harpsichords,
celestas and many other
instruments. It can be used as
standalone software or as a plug-in.
modartt.com
NEWS IN BRIEF
Casio Music UK has donated
a selection of its keyboards
to Nordo Robbins, the
largest independent music
therapy charity in the UK.
e donated keyboards will
be used by music therapists
who work with vulnerable
and isolated people a ected
by life-limiting illness or
disability. Research showing
the positive impacts of
musical experiences on
mental health and wellbeing
was a motivation for the
company to join forces
with Nordo Robbins. Neil
Evans, head of Casio EMI,
commented: We re delighted
to be able to help champion
the positive impact of music
therapy for people who need
it the most those a ected
by life-limiting illness or
conditions. Hannah Sheedy,
director of fundraising at
Nordo Robbins, added: As a
charity, we receive no direct
government funding, so by
equipping us with these tools
we are able to do our best
work and that is a huge gift
for us. music.casio.co.uk
Yamaha has launched a
competition to win Jamie
Cullums piano. Schools,
charities and community
groups can enter to win the
Yamaha S6 grand piano.
Entrants must write and
record an original song
that demonstrates how
the S6 grand could inspire
more music-making and
creativity in their community.
Entries will be judged
on melody, composition,
originality and lyrics. Cullum
(pictured, below left) said,
is phenomenal instrument
has been living in my studio
for a few years now and I ve
written loads of songs on it.
It s coming out with me one
last time on my 2020 Taller
tour, and then it could be
yours! e competition will
close on 31 October, with
the winner to be selected by
Cullum and announced on 30
November. uk.yamaha.com
Hastings International
Piano, the charity responsible
for Hastings International
Piano Concerto Competition
and Hastings International
Piano Festival, has launched
an online concert series to
support the careers of its
prizewinners during the
coronavirus pandemic.
e short recitals premiere
every Friday evening at
7pm on Facebook and at
hastingsinternationalpiano.
org. Viewers are invited to
make a voluntary donation
to the charity s engagement
fund. Curator and managing
director Ian Roberts said:
It is so important to help
and support exceptional
youg talents who are forging
ahead with their careers. e
current situation musicians
nd themselves in has denied
them the opportunity to
perform all over the world
with ensembles, orchestras
and as solo artists. Our
online concert series is our
way of providing regular
performance opportunities
and continuing to support our
past and current competition
winners in their future
development.
›
 ONE TO WATCH

A
very Gagliano believes Chopin is a vocal
composer . e 18-year-old from Washington
DC recently took First Prize at the National
Chopin Competition in Miami, Florida, and
she notes that Chopin loved bel canto opera a fact you
have to consider when performing his music. Indeed, her
account of the composer s Concerto No 1 in E minor at
the competitions nal round was notable for its strongly
personal approach. e Romanze emerged at the outset
like an improvised Chopin etude while her eet tempo
in the concluding Rondo was never too eccentric. She
made every bar compelling, and the myriad gradations of
softness in her playing were especially striking.
Gaglianos stellar technique, sensitivity of touch and
sweeping musicality carried the day, bringing a cash prize of
$100,000 the highest of any US piano competition along
with a recording contract with Steinway & Sons, automatic
entry to the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw
this coming October, and a concert tour of the United
States and Canada. ( e Chopin Foundation of the United
States sponsors the competition every ve years, sending
the two top prize winners to compete in Warsaw.) As a
pianist, says Gagliano, I must nd Chopins inner voice and
explore the emotional depth of the music while maintaining
a natural, singing quality. Most of all, she seeks the ability to
touch people thats what gives me pleasure and joy.
Gagliano had a precocious start in life as a pianist. She
began studies when she was just two years old in the
Early Childhood Music Program at the Levine School
of Music in Washington DC, moving on to the Suzuki
method of keyboard aged ve. By seven, she was studying
with Russian pedagogue Marina Alekseyeva (a former
instructor at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
in St Petersburg). All this culminated in a place at
Philadelphias Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 14.
She continues her studies there under Gary Gra man
and Jonathan Biss. During this time, she has been a

A voice
Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music
Foundation (2014-16) which o ered numerous learning
and performance opportunities. And prior to her Chopin
competition triumph, she garnered top prizes at the 2019
Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and

of her own
Avery Gagliano is a distinctive young talent who has
already graduated to the big league of professional
pianists while still a student at music college.
Lawrence Budmen reports
Opposite, top right: Rehearsing Chopin in Miami with conductor Marzena Diakun
Aspen Festival Concerto Competition, performing at the
Verbier Festival and Carnegie Hall along the way.
At Curtis, Gagliano has found the best of both possible
worlds in her teachers. ey are each incredible artists
and both have shaped me as a musician, though their
teaching styles are very di erent, she says. Biss emphasises
an analytical standpoint, stressing a scores underlying
harmonic structure, character and colour. Gra man,
meanwhile, lets pianists cultivate their own style. He has
given me freedom to develop who I am as a musician.
Gagliano regards competitions as concert performances
rather than competitive events. Her aim, even when she is
competing, is to enjoy making music in the moment. With
the Warsaw competition coming up, Chopin currently
occupies most of her attention, though she says that
Mozart is near and dear to me and is currently studying

12 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

 ONE TO WATCH

Mozart s Jeunehomme Concerto. She wants to balance her

diet when it comes to repertoire: Schumann and Brahms
loom in her future and she is particularly enthusiastic
about playing chamber music. You can learn so much
from your peers in intimate musical con gurations she
says, preferring to treat the orchestra as a large chamber
ensemble when playing concertos. (Rachmaninov No 2
and Schumann are already part of her concerto o ering.)
Speaking of the pianists of the past who have been
formative in uences, Gagliano says she prefers musicians
who are introspective, deeply probing and subtle rather
than players who abound in ashy pyrotechnical display.
She enjoys Arthur Rubinsteins Chopin recordings which
she nds natural and e ortless, never manipulated .
Likewise, she feels 1975 Warsaw competition winner
Krystian Zimermans performances strike the right tone
and musical ow. An outstanding favourite is Mitsuko
Uchida: A humble, honest musician, she says. She is, of the face of the coronavirus shutdown). Whether Warsaw
course, still a teenager and pop music is part of the musical takes place or not this year, theres no doubt that Gagliano
mix that inspires her she even writes and performs her is heading for a long, fruitful career with a musical voice
own pop songs in her increasingly rare free time. that already has an appealing quality of its very own.
For now, Gagliano intends to continue her studies
at Curtis but those plans might change if she is placed Avery Gagliano will compete in the 18th Chopin Piano
high in the Warsaw competition rankings (if indeed Competition in Warsaw between 2 and 23 October 2020.
conservatories and competitions remain functional in chopin.org/avery-gagliano

Enriching Lives
through the

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OF MUSIC

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www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 13


Disastrous drops
Irreparable damage to a beloved piano undoubtedly causes distress,
but needs to be put into perspective, says Benjamin Ivry
F
KEITH SAUNDERS
or any musician, the loss of an
instrument is a severe challenge. In
February, the Canadian pianist Angela
Hewitt attracted international headlines
when she announced via Facebook that
her Fazioli F278 concert grand, usually kept
at her home on scenic Lake Trasimeno in
Umbria, Italy, had been damaged beyond
repair while in transit.
Since 2003, Hewitt periodically had her
piano moved for recording sessions or
special performances, referring to it as
my best friend and companion, whom
she hopes is now in piano heaven . With
a North American sense of practicality
amid her grief, Hewitt s post also directed
shoppers to her Hyperion recordings
exemplifying the Fazioli s qualities, such as
her new Bach Partitas (CDA68271/2) and
2012 Debussy album (CDA67898), the latter
one of her favourites for the sheer quality of
sound and colour .
By accepting that the instrument was
unrecoverable, or kaputt as she termed
it, Hewitt was unlike her compatriot
Glenn Gould, who kept Verne Edquist, a
renowned Toronto tuner and technician,
intermittently busy for almost a decade
after Gould s Steinway CD 318 was dropped
by movers in 1971.
According to Gould s biographer, Kevin
Bazzana, the eccentric virtuoso had already
endured a similar catastrophe in 1957
when his Steinway CD 174 (upon which his
bestselling Goldberg Variations had been
recorded two years earlier) was likewise
dropped and irrevocably damaged.
Neither Gould nor Hewitt appear to have
considered adopting the attitude of pianists
such as Sviatoslav Richter, who was ready
and willing to play on any instrument that
fortune provided, without fetishising one
speci c keyboard or even manufacturer.
14 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
IN BL ACK AND WHITE
Angela Hewitt with her cherished Fazioli
It is impossible to fully plumb the depths
of anothers bereavement, so it remains a
mystery whether accidental deprivation
of a piano is somehow less bitter than its
intentional destruction. e Polish pianist
Krystian Zimerman endured incidents in
2001 and 2006 at New Yorks JFK Airport,
wherein one of his Steinways was purposely
destroyed and another damaged by US
Transportation Security Administration sta .
On the rst-mentioned occasion,
apparently the glue used to hold the piano
together had some similarities to a chemical
compound found in terrorist explosives, and
examiners on high alert after the September
11 attacks considered it prudent to eliminate
the potentially dangerous import. Zimermans
response was endlessly resourceful. Instead
of trying to travel thenceforth with an entire
piano, he had its innards own to America.
After arrival, he borrowed a piano shell from
Steinway and would personally assemble the
whole thing by hand.
Not only was Zimerman a valiant
exemplar of DIY, he also hired a driver to
transport the shell from city to city during
US tours, while he himself drove another
vehicle containing the keys and hammers.
Alas, even this ingenious approach was
defeated in 2006, when a piano transported
by Zimerman was held up and damaged
in US Customs, interrupting his concert
schedule. Eventually, due to these and other
discouragements, Zimerman desisted from
giving recitals in the USA.
As painful as these examples are, they
surely cannot compare with the experiences
of pianists in places where not just pianos,
but also those who play them, are targets
of violence. In such regions, artists rarely
confuse the demise of instruments with
that of friends or companions. Richard
Krauss Pianos and Politics in China (OUP,
1989) explains that during Mao Zedong s
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976,
pianos were regularly destroyed as symbols
of Western bourgeois imperialism. Fan
Jilin, head of Shanghai Conservatory piano
department, was beaten by her former
pupils. Li Mingqiang, who came fourth in
the 1960 Chopin Competition, was jailed
and prevented from performing in public
until after 1976. Liu Shikun, a prizewinner
at Moscow s Tchaikovsky Competition,
was interned in Taicheng Prison, while Gu
Shengying, piano soloist with the Shanghai
Philharmonic, committed suicide to escape
from political harassment , as Kraus puts it.
Wrecked lives are more poignant than
sad fates which befall mere instruments,
however cherished. is is con rmed by the
story of Aeham Ahmad, born in the Yarmouk
Camp for refugees in Syria, who wrote about
his experiences in e Pianist of Yarmouk
(Michael Joseph, 2019). Playing a dilapidated
upright in the street even after a grenade
attack injured one of his hands, Ahmad was
obliged to ee to Germany when armed
Islamic State (IS) guards set his piano alight
because they considered its music impious.
Compared with such stories, the
annihilation of an insured instrument is only
a relative tragedy, even possibly unworthy of
a media uproar. IP
‘...piano heaven.
Touch, ar culaa on,
tone, phrasing; every
element worked in step
to create agile music-
making alive with subtle
emoo ons, conscious
thought and all other
signs of intelligent life.’
Goe+ Brown - the Times

CHAN 20134 - Available Now

 e
I -T m re
Clavier
Why are we so quick to criticise star
performers? Charivari decries the thoughtless
social media onslaughts artists often face

JULIA WESELY

Undeserving victim: Yuja Wang was recently made a target for criticism and speculation fuelled by social media

C
anada is where we head for this months
column. In particular, to passport control
in Vancouver at the end of February. I
have never been to Canada but I have visited the
USA many times. When running the gauntlet
of customs and passport control in New York,
for instance, one must endure those dressed in
a little brief authority playing to the full their
role of judge and jury. ey manage to raise
unpleasantness to unprecedented heights.
So I can only imagine what kind of
interrogation the pianist Yuja Wang experienced
on her arrival at Vancouver, where they clearly
have the same badass attitude as the USA. After
her ordeal, Ms Wang, though an experienced
world traveller, was left shaken and upset. She
cried a great deal after (and maybe during) the
event. She probably felt, with every good reason,
like cancelling the concert she had come to give
before getting out of there on the next plane.
She decided not to do that because she is a
consummate professional. Having arrived late
at the venue, she saw that her eyes were red
and swollen. What to do? Sunglasses. at s
the answer. No explanation that would not
get a concert o to a good start. She would just
play her programme as well as possible then
retreat to her hotel. Which is what she did.
e next thing we know, some conductor
no-ones ever heard of posted a screed on

16 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


social meeja criticising Wang for disrespecting
the audience by wearing sunglasses, bowing
curtly (which she always does anyway) and
not acknowledging her public. Typical of the
kind of thing posted every day on Smugbook
and other outlets except this was dissing
a major international concert artist who, if
you know anything at all about her, would
never dream of disrespecting her audience
in whichever way that might be de ned. A
professional musician giving a fellow musician
a public dressing down and a lecture on how
to conduct herself. What arrogance! I wonder
if the conductor would have expressed similar
views if Martha Argerich had appeared
wearing dark glasses.
Indeed, no one (as far as I know) has posted
similar messages about Grigory Sokolov, or
would have done about Sviatoslav Richter or
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, even though
these artists have well-deserved reputations
for paying scant attention to their audiences.
In the good old, distant days of less than
40 years ago, if you wanted to express your
opinion about what you witnessed in that
www.international-piano.com
‘It has become far too easy to insult, criticise and
abuse behind the cloak of anonymity’
Vancouver concert hall ( Yuja Wang was
wearing dark glasses how dare she! ) you
would have had to write it on a piece of paper
usually in green ink and capital letters add
your address, stick it in an envelope, a x a
stamp and take it to the post box. Now, with
the snow ake generation taking o ence at the
slightest thing, Smugbook and other platforms
have paradoxically given these woke warriors
the means to express their views, ill-judged or
otherwise, at the tap of a smartphone. It has
become far too easy to insult, criticise and
abuse behind the cloak of anonymity (though
to be fair, in this case, the conductor did have
the decency to attach her name to her post).
Meanwhile, Wang was forced into giving
an (very gracious) explanation of what had
happened because of the mass of uninformed
remarks swirling about in the dust of the
original post. Apologies for the dissing were
forthcoming from the conductor, who said
THE ILL TEMPERED CLAVIER
she was truly sorry for adding to Wang s
traumatic experience at the airport.
What right do audience members have
anyway to assume that an artist is in a
good mood and the best of health? A true
professional will never apologise or let on.
But perhaps he or she has eaten something
that disagreed with them. ey might have
had a bad night s sleep or a row with their
partner, maybe even a bereavement, or who
knows what? e last thing they need is to
read the airhead thoughts of sanctimonious
commentators who know nothing about
what it takes to perform a solo recital for
2,000 people.
How did I get to hear of all this? Via a UK-
based website which I shan t name. It doesn t
deserve the publicity. It thrives on stories like
this, providing a platform for people to insult
and provoke. And all in the name of classical
music. Count me out. IP
International Piano May/June 2020 17
 COVER FEATURE

Tales
from the
dark side
Conducting Brahms’ concertos from
the keyboard has given Lars Vogt
new insights into works that
have been central to his
career. Josephine
Miles$æºŁıŁØ
entranced by the
pianist’s storytelling
powers in his
latest recordings
with the Royal
Northern Sinfonia

GIORGIA BERTAZZI

18 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


S
uddenly it hit me like a bomb and dominated my life
for quite a while. Lars Vogt is talking about Brahms
First Piano Concerto. e German pianist-conductor,
who is about to complete ve years as music director
of the Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS) in Gateshead, UK, fell
in love with the concerto as a teenager. Now, aged 49, he has
recorded both the First and Second Brahms concertos for
Ondine, directing the RNS from the keyboard.
Brahms is central to Vogts musical life. He was initially
attracted by the melancholy of the composers music and its
dusky, Nordic colours, which evoke a dark and melancholic
preconception of the world . He recalls taking the train as a
student to his piano lessons in Hanover, rain lashing against
the windows, listening to Claudio Arraus recording of the
First Concerto. When he heard the second theme of the rst
movement, he recollects that it was so gorgeous to get lost in
this darkness and sadness, and the fatal side of this concerto.
Vogt does not, on the surface, come across as a
melancholic character. He is friendly, personable, open;
our conversation was frequently punctuated by laughter.
But there is clearly a seriousness and intensity to his
thinking: often his expression would cloud as he became
lost in deep thought. His commitment to music, to his
work, to conveying a powerful artistic vision in everything
he undertakes, is striking.
An intense conviction shines through his recording of
the First Concerto, released last autumn. I was particularly
impressed by the visceral energy emanating from his
chamber orchestra. Vogt tells me there were 10 rst
violins: small forces but no small feat. Music is always
about attitude, and that goes for any group, he a rms. I
spoke about this [to the RNS] before we recorded the First
Concerto: We all have to go for it as if our life depended
ROYAL NORTHERN SINFONIA
www.international-piano.com
COVER FEATURE
on it. en it will be much stronger than an orchestra of
20 or more rather laid-back players .
e original plan was to record both concertos with
a conductor, but ultimately Vogt returned to the idea of
directing from the piano. ese recordings were supposed
to be my statement about these pieces. So I decided I ll do
it with my guys whom I know and trust. e one time I do
these concertos, I ll do them A to Z how I want them .
Vogt is undoubtedly driven, and judging by his recordings,
his drive in ltrates all those around him. He says that for an
orchestra, playing with a pianist-conductor rather than being
conducted from the podium is itself a great motivator and
its one of the aspects of his role that he relishes. I found
that orchestras often just enjoy it: taking more responsibility
and being in direct dialogue with me. He acknowledges the
bene t of a strong relationship with the concertmaster, to
help him lead, but even when hes appeared as guest pianist-
conductor with orchestras he has never worked with before,
by the end of the rehearsal we always come to this place
where weve sorted out who leads what .
It s a democratic approach. He cites the Grieg Concerto:
At the end, the brass actually have to lead it. ere is
no other way I can t conduct it. I can tell them what it
should be like, and sometimes I ll conduct it in rehearsal
without me playing, but then they have to take the
initiative and we follow them. So the whole hierarchy goes
upside down, and that s good.
When I ask him about control how does he manage
tempi changes and rubato, for instance? he replies ‘The natural thing for
with thoughtful assuredness. I really don t think that s me is to communicate
what music-making is about. Rather than controlling what I feel about the
everything, conductors should celebrate the di erent music, even when I’m
perspectives within an orchestra. I think [as a conductor] not playing’
International Piano May/June 2020 19
 “ I heard the music and
I saw it, too. I could see
in my mind where every
instrument was located.
The recording transported
me back to the actual
performance. It was an
amazing experience.
Marina Rebeka
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one has to convince, but also embrace opinions and take
them seriously. I nd it enriching not to control every
rubato in exactly the way I want it, but to have a sense of
freedom and risk-taking.
Vogt s philosophy is refreshing and testament to his
skills as a collaborative musician (he is also a proli c
chamber music performer). He understands the truly
human side to music-making. What I love about the
rehearsal process and coming together with a group [of
musicians] is that it s exible and dependent on who,
where, how, which mood were in It s dependent on so
many things because were humans. And ideally, we all still
have fun. at an orchestra enjoys playing and really wants
to do all these things is so important.
Vogt became interested in conducting when competing
in the Leeds Competition in 1990, where he won second
prize. Simon Rattle conducted the nals: I remember being
completely fascinated by what he did with the orchestra.
But he didnt think about trying it himself until he made his
USA debut in Los Angeles with Rattle in 1991. When we
came o stage, [Simon] said to me, You know, in ten years
you are a conductor . And it hit me like lightning. He took
conducting lessons back in Germany and did some projects
with amateur and professional orchestras. But then he put
it aside to focus on his piano career.
It was about a decade ago that the spark for conducting
ignited in him again. He was touring with a conductor-
less chamber orchestra and began indicating a few ideas
to the players. en he stepped in at the last moment
with the Salzburg Camerata. ere was only half an hour
for rehearsal, so I started showing things because there
simply wasn t time to rehearse properly. It sort of infected
me, just how much fun that was. On the way to the airport
afterwards, I rang my agent and said, Look, it doesn t
matter what orchestra it is, but I have to try this . e rst
time he conducted the RNS was an absolute highlight
of his career, and when they asked me if I would be their
music director, it was a dream come true.
From a pianistic perspective, what are the joys of directing
from the keyboard? Vogt doesnt hesitate: Its just so
completely immediate. Youre in the music. He says that
he nds it easier than the role of pure soloist because the
natural thing for me is to communicate what I feel about the
music, even when I m not playing . And on a practical note,
it means he doesnt have to sit around during the orchestral
exposition waiting to come in: Its not a cold start!
Surely, though, standing and conducting the opening
of a concerto then sitting down to play as the soloist
must require a certain shift in mentality. Vogt answers
again with graceful assuredness. In a way, it becomes
all the same thing it s just part of being a musician. He
points out that pianists anyway have several voices in
our hands . He now sees piano scores orchestrally, and
when teaching, often asks his students which instruments
they can hear in the music and how they might conduct
it thereby discovering new interpretations and qualities
of touch. For Vogt, all aspects of music-making are
intrinsically connected.
www.international-piano.com
COVER FEATURE
˚˚˛ª˚·—
V ogt enjoys a fruitful relationship with the Finnish
record label Ondine and holds great admiration for its
founder, Reijo Kiilunen. Every Ondine album and Kiilunens
Servant to the
storytelling: Vogt
records Brahms with
dealing with every artist, he avers, is full of love and time the Royal Northern
and thought and vision. However, Vogt is keen to steer Sinfonia
clear of the perfectionist side of the recording business.
I much prefer recordings that have some weaknesses but
have a really strong artistic story to tell. I love Schnabels
recordings, full of mistakes, but did that man tell a story!
e two Brahms concertos were each recorded in one
day ( we had to be extremely focused ) but Vogt and his
team were able to use live concert recordings as a basis for
the shape of the album recordings. Of course, you want
to get it right, Vogt concedes, and its fun to nail it the way
you really want it, to nd exactly what you want to say with
each bit. Vogt certainly has clear artistic ideas about what
he and Brahms wants to express in the concertos.
e dramatic opening of the First Concerto, with its
spiky melody and threatening trills, is, for Vogt, the
ground being pulled away from your feet, just absolute
catastrophe . He relays the theory that Brahms wrote the
rst theme after hearing of Schumanns suicide attempt.
Unproven, but a circumstance that would be t the
catastrophic, despairing nature of the music. e Adagio
second movement brings plain quietness and hope and
a vision of peace after the ercely relentless anguish of
the rst movement. en the Hungarian-dance-like third
movement, though traversing drama, ultimately ends in
sunrise, hope and triumph .
Vogt emphasises that the First Concerto is not a virtuosic
showpiece but an essential musical statement . And
technically speaking, its not that di cult. e Second,
however, is the pianists Mount Everest and tells a di erent
story. Whereas the First begins with thunder, the Second
I nd it enriching to have a sense
of freedom and risk-taking
International Piano May/June 2020 21
 COVER FEATURE
——˚¸˛˚ªª
‘Our music is only opens with a solo French horn, the symbol of humans
relevant if it has being united with their nature and projecting a sense that
something to say about this is the way the world should be . But the contentment
our world and our lives.’ is short-lived. Disrupted by the rst piano cadenza, the
whole rst movement is about trying to nd what was
there in the beginning. We hear struggle and disquiet in
the development section the French horn returns with
the theme in the minor but in the end Brahms returns to
B- at major and it seems like weve triumphed already .
Dont get too comfortable though. e second
movement is a total massacre that ends in turmoil. As
a person on stage having played that, I feel I am lost.
Rescue comes in the form of the cello. Brahms does this
incredible thing. He introduces a new character, the cellist,
who just hums a very simple melody. For me its literally
like somebody comes on stage the pianist is covered
in blood! and this person takes the pianist by the hand
and says, Come on, its going to be OK . Once the pianist
accepts the helping hand at the end of the third movement,
the last movement is an expression of homecoming, of
contentment with ourselves and our lives. It doesnt need
the triumph anymore. e Giocoso in the end is just us
being full of bliss and joy, and then we can go home.
Its a very strong psychological story. Brahms doesnt need
to nd an end where everybody jumps up and celebrates the
pianist the pianist is not so important even though hes
just played the hardest piece of the whole repertoire! is
work is really a character test, because its so hard and we
need to put in so much work every time we play it, yet we
have to be completely servant to the storytelling.
Vogt s latest albums pairs the Second Concerto with
Brahms Op 24 Handel Variations ( for solo piano). He says
he had something of a eureka moment when teaching
the Handel Variations a few years ago, realising that
their theme is essentially the same as the theme of the
rst movement of the concerto, and both are in B- at
major. e concertos theme could almost be the next
variation of the Handel Variations, and that s why it was so
important for me to combine these two [works] .
22 May/June 2020 International Piano
e Handel Variations is an immense composition,
pushing the technical possibilities of piano playing to
their limit. I wonder how Vogt maintains a sense of
overarching structure throughout the 25 variations and
fugue, and he returns to the idea of storytelling. Although
there are groups of variations that belong together as a
unit, often the story continues from one variation to the
next. He tries to maintain the narrative through sensitive
tempo links and avoiding ritardandos at the end of each
variation. Once a wheel is running in Brahms music, it
usually runs for a while and takes a while to stop it s not
like Beethoven where things happen abruptly all the time.
Vogt does nevertheless see the in uence of the B- at
fugue from Beethovens Hammerklavier Sonata nale in
the fugue of the Handel Variations. e in uence of Bachs
Goldbergs is undeniable too. ey always stand on each
other s shoulders. Great composers will come up with
original things, but they don t have to reinvent the whole
world. Even the great revolutionaries like Beethoven stood
on [the shoulders of] Mozart and Haydn, up until the end.
Vogt says that Brahms old world rootedness and use of
archaic compositional tropes are qualities that drew him
to the composer in the rst place.
Who, then, does Vogt count among his in uences when
it comes to playing Brahms? He loves the touch of Claudio
Arrau, and Daniel Barenboims depth of tone: Not a lot of
pianists have this depth of sound that Brahms requires.
He used to listen a lot to Julius Katchen when he was
growing up, but came to disagree with some of Katchens
tempi too virtuosic for his liking.
is year Vogt takes up his position as music director
of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, which will involve
more conducting from the podium than from the
piano. He has no intention, however, of giving up piano-
playing. If anything, he says, his passion for the piano
has grown in recent years: practice time has become
so scarce that when he does nd an hour or two, it is a
form of valued mental respite, away from the demands
of orchestral rehearsal. Upcoming recording plans
include Mendelssohn and a pairing of the Schumann and
Schoenberg concertos.
Vogt is realistic but determined as to the future of his
profession. Nobody takes it for granted any more that
there are orchestras. We know how fragile everything is
and we know we have to put all our love and spirit into it
to keep people interested in our music. It s not a given
and it shouldn t be a given. Our music is only relevant if it
has something to say about our world and our lives. ere
could hardly be a more tireless advocate for the cause. IP
Lars Vogt’s recording of
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No
2 and Variations and Fugue
on a eme by Handel Op 24
is now available from Ondine
(ODE13462). larsvogt.de
www.international-piano.com
 IN RETROSPECT

Naked iconoclast
˚łıææˇıŁıº—łŁæºıŁŁııææŒŒæºŁł&ŁıŁØºŁ
łŁæŁæØŁºŁıŁłæıºßºŁØłBenjamin Ivryı$Ł
ºœºØºŁæ

TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

new series from SWR Music containing unissued
radio recordings of Friedrich Guldas solo recitals
and concertos (see Selected Listening below)
remind us that the achievement of keyboard
dropouts mostly depends on where they land. Gulda (1930-
2000) has been compared to Canadas Glenn Gould, who
also eventually renounced giving standard piano recitals.
e Ukrainian virtuoso Sasha Grynyuk even released an
album juxtaposing compositions by Gulda and Gould
(Piano Classics PCL0043).
Yet di erences are more striking than similarities. e
puritanical Gould shunned crowded auditoriums for the
pristine atmosphere of recording studios. e chain-
smoking hedonist Gulda, loathing isolation, wanted to
press the esh even more than he could at keyboard
recitals. Gulda claimed to resent that the rigours of
playing classical piano required limiting his alcohol
consumption. According to the August 1966 issue of the
jazz periodical Down Beat, Gulda once sauntered into
a Vienna bar and shouted, Dry martini! , whereupon a
waiter who thought he was speaking German brought
him three martinis (drei-Martinis). Down Beat gives no
hint that Gulda sent back the excess booze.
Even in their intimate lives, Gould and Gulda were
essentially dissimilar. Ever-secretive, Gould recorded
emotive, valid renditions of lieder by Hindemith with a
paramour, the Canadian vocalist Roxolana Roslak. By
contrast, Gulda recorded execrable performances of
Schumann lieder with a companion, Ursula Anders, and in
an un-Gouldian way, traipsed onstage naked with Anders
to perform them live. Alternatively, the nude Gulda would
play the crumhorn, a Renaissance woodwind instrument.
He also experimented on baritone sax, but spared
audiences the sight of him tooting it ungarbed.
As a classical piano dropout, Gulda was closer to the
Hungarian-American Ervin NyiregyhÆzi (1903-1987), who
also jettisoned a concert career to experience earthier
pleasures in the red-light districts of San Francisco and Zawinul, with whom he played impromptu clandestine Freidrich Gulda
elsewhere. Yet NyiregyhÆzi languished in poverty for most concerts during the war, grew up to be a jazz fusion (1920-2000)
of his life, unlike Gulda, whose trendy concert antics keyboardist with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis.
earned him enough to pay for frequent holidays in Ibiza. Zawinul assimilated into a milieu where Gulda remained
is career began when Guldas pianist mother urged an investigative outsider, seriously interested in the idiom,
him to take lessons as a boy, leading to quick, and but lacking the authenticity required of jazz.
seemingly e ortless, success. During the war years, Gulda Yet Gulda considered jazz the only new music,
and his family braved Nazi strictures to listen to Allied scorning contemporary piano works by Boulez and
Army broadcasts, including jazz. Gulda always identi ed Stockhausen, while considering Bart k and Schoenberg
jazz with liberation, especially since his lifelong friend Joe to be insu ciently separated from the past. He made his

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 23

 IN RETROSPECT

Gulda could be a Despite early acclaim, reviewers reminded punters that

QLJKWPDUHIDWKHU‹JXUH Gulda had ample competition at a time when legendary
despite the laidback keyboard talents still thrived. In November 1951, the
attitudes he professed Musical Times compared two renditions of Beethovens
to espouse Sonata Op 111 in C minor, by Edwin Fischer and Gulda,
from that year s Salzburg Festival, concluding that
21-year-old Guldas showed insu cient maturity and
depth . Similarly, the MT of May 1956 evaluated recordings
of the rst book of Debussy s Préludes, complaining that
despite Guldas interpretive qualities, he was no match
for [the elder Walter Gieseking s] almost miraculously
perfect performance .
Small wonder that around the age of 30, Gulda rebelled
against the elderly performers and audiences alike.
In interviews akin to rollercoaster rides of jokes, rage,
and profanity, he described punters at piano recitals
as centenarian paralytics and stinking reactionary
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

art lemurs who expect to hear the same ve sonatas

Carnegie Hall debut in 1950 at age 20, following three
days of detention at Ellis Island after admitting that 10
years previously, he had been obliged to join a Nazi youth
Keyboard camaraderie: organisation, whose meetings he never attended. As
Gulda with lifelong soon as his well-received Manhattan debut was over, he
friend and collaborator hurried to Birdland, a celebrated jazz club, to hear Duke
Joe Zawinul Ellingtons orchestra.
performed ad in nitum.
On a personal level, Gulda had trouble coping with
early success, which translated to chess games played
against himself in lonely hotel rooms. He longed for the
camaraderie of jazz clubs, in stark opposition to the chilly
solitude and competitiveness of virtuoso piano careers.
As Flower Power evolved in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Gulda jumped on the bandwagon, transcribing versions
of hits by the Doors and Stevie Wonder. Yet as his son
Paul Gulda informed Welt am Sonntag newspaper in May
2010, the elder Gulda could be an old-fashioned choleric
paterfamilias, citing an episode when Paul was around 15

UNITED ARCHIVES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

24 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


and his father invited him to improvise on the recorder
in the family garden. When Paul interpolated part of a
Mozart symphony into his playing, his father reacted very
contemptuously , concluding, My son does not appreciate
freedom, my son does not feel my vibes, he defaces Mozart.
Gulda could be a nightmare father- gure to grownups
too, despite the laidback attitudes he professed to
espouse. In September 1971, Helmut M ller Br hl,
director of Germany s Br hl Palace Concerts, told the
New York Times that Gulda would never be invited again:
[Gulda] always get angry. Hes di cult about money,
about what he wants to eat. Hes di cult about his music,
too. is tyrannical side of Gulda makes it tting that his
most famous pupil, Martha Argerich, was allowed access
to him only after blurting out (aged 12) to an admirer
the Argentinian dictator Juan Per n that her most
cherished dream would be to work with Gulda. Per n
made Argerichs studies with Gulda possible.
As part of his imperious tendencies, Gulda refused in
later years to divulge recital programmes until the public
was assembled, preferring to rely on spontaneity. Scorning
most maestros, he insisted upon conducting from the
keyboard, despite his lack of talent in leading orchestras.
Yet the SWR reissues reestablish why Gulda enjoyed an
early career breakthrough. A spry, impish rendition of part
of Bachs English Suite No 2 in A minor, a psychologically
fragile Impromptu in A- at major and poignant Sonata
No 16 in A minor, the last two by Schubert, are impressive.
Yet Gulda repeatedly stated that he was too close to the
Viennese-style mindset of smiles and suicide epitomised
by the oft-despairing, doomed Schubert to frequent this
repertoire, no matter how acutely he mastered it.
One wonders, on the other hand, if French
compositions were really his cup of tea, from a limp
performance of Couperins L’épineuse, followed by
a sketchily envisioned Second Book of Debussy s
Préludes, lacking stylistic assurance. Meanwhile, his
own compositions, of which Prelude and Fugue and the
Doors transcription Light My Fire proved widely popular,
were repetitious to a fault, although more rollicking
than the usual drily sober-sided minimalism. Today, his
transcriptions of pop and rock music do not seem to
transcend the indigence of the original melodies.
Gulda was at his most attractive communicating
domestic warmth and a ection in Mozart, especially in
the Sonata No 13 in B- at major, with a nal movement,
marked Allegretto grazioso, like a richly imagined mise-
en-scŁne from an 18th-century stage comedy. Instinctively
imagining the spirit of the rococo, Gulda also perceived
its sadly eeting aspects, like an Austrian version of
the painter Watteau. He could also be a philosopher in
Beethovens works, being drawn to the pensive Fourth
Concerto and Sonata No 28 in A major. In the rst
movement of the latter, marked somewhat lively, but with
intense feeling, Gulda appears to be asking some essential
questions about mankind s motivation for existence.
Unlike these highly personalised conceptions, Guldas
version of Handel s Suite in E minor HWV 429 sounds
www.international-piano.com
IN RETROSPECT
Gulda was at his most attractive
communicating domestic warmth and
a ection in Mozart
rather formal and anonymous. e more outlandish sides
of Gulda are evident in his use of an ampli ed clavichord
for Bach, its weird echoing twang like a puny electric
guitar more suited to the Hawaiian shirts he sported
onstage in later recitals, in addition to other exotic wear,
than Baroque music.
On the SWR recital reissue, 30 minutes of portentous,
dated sonic explorations with his jazz ensemble are
included: Guldas Perspective No 1 lacks only the presence
of Yoko Ono to become the de nitive hippie-era waste
of time. In concertos, Gulda is at his best in a January
1962 performance of Mozart s Concerto No 14 in E- at
major conducted by Hans Rosbaud, in which the pianist
manages to be zzy and celebratory in turn. Mozart s
Concerto No 23 in A major from April 1959, also with
Rosbaud, is equally ne, particularly an unadorned,
moving second movement Adagio followed by a spi y
nale, marked Allegro assai.
Piano lovers may mourn that Gulda renounced artistic
collaboration with the likes of Rosbaud, favouring instead
onstage happenings with nubile disco dancers and
Giuseppe Nuzzo, an Italian disc jockey known as DJ Pippi,
who headlined at Pacha, Ibizas stellar nightspot. Yet we
can only conclude that Gulda knew his own psychological
fragilities and emotional imperatives, and followed his
heart. His legacy, one of wilful talent and wildly uneven
results, remains substantial. IP
Two new collections of previously
unissued radio recordings by Friedrich
Gulda are now available from SWR
Music: e Stuttgart Solo Recitals
1966-1979 (SWR19081 – 7 CDs) and
Piano Concertos by Mozart, Haydn,
Beethoven and Strauss (SWR19088
– 3 CDs). swrmediaservices.de
FURTHER LISTENING
Friedrich Gulda: The First Recordings Friedrich Gulda: Piano Recital (1959)
Decca 4763051 Hänssler Classic 93704
Friedrich Gulda: The Early Rias Friedrich Gulda plays Chopin
Recordings DG 4778724
Audite 21404
Strauss Burleske in D minor
Friedrich Gulda: Decca Beethoven Vienna Philharmonic/Karl Böhm
Recordings (1950-1958) Orfeo C710081B
Decca 4756835
Music for two pianos
Friedrich Gulda plays Beethoven
Friedrich Gulda, Joe Zawinul (pfs)
(1953-7)
Capriccio C67175
Orfeo C808109L
International Piano May/June 2020 25
 PERSONAL TOUCH
RENATO BIANCHINI
I
rst heard Scriabins music performed by Horowitz
during his return concert in Moscow in 1986. I
immediately felt a nity with the composer s musical
language. Ever since, music by Scriabin has loomed
large in my own repertoire. I count him among the
composers to whose music I feel particularly close.
First and foremost, his imagination always burns with
an intense ame. Even in his miniatures, he is able to
distil a complete musical idea into just a few bars. I love
the clarity of the way he paints with sound without being
impressionistic, as well as his sumptuous harmonic
palette and intricate rhythmic idiom. His music is
very varied, having distinctive periods , and is equally
appealing to general audiences and musical connoisseurs.
ere is so much richness in Scriabins music, but at the
same time its emotional world is very human: the feelings
and moods he captures are truly universal.
In addition to playing a lot of Scriabin, I also love
performing mazurkas by many Polish composers, such
as Maciejewski, Szymanowski and, of course, Chopin.
When my partner suggested combining these passions
by recording Scriabins mazurkas for my rst album
with Ondine, it made perfect sense and led me to the
discovery of yet another chapter in Scriabins enigmatic
musical world.
Scriabins early mazurkas are clearly inspired by those
of Chopin, and understandably so: he developed as a
composer on a musical diet that included a hefty dose of
Chopin. But even these early works show that he is heading
in his own direction in the realms of harmony and sound
colours. By the time Scriabin wrote his later mazurka
26 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Notated
dreams
Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski
introduces his new album of
Scriabin’s mazurkas
opuses, he had already found his own highly distinctive
voice. He did not deliberately try to move away from
Chopin, but had already travelled so far from that language
it was inevitable his later mazurkas would be very di erent.
ese are tone poems, notated dreams, moments of
colours and scents, with rhythmical hints of the mazurka.
e mazurkas of both composers are among their most
personal utterances. ey each kept seeking new ways of
presenting their ideas in this form though while Chopin
continued composing mazurkas throughout his life,
Scriabin sadly didn t.
e musical challenges of Scriabins mazurkas are
also very di erent from Chopins, especially the later
opus numbers, which were created in a di erent era. On
a purely technical level, Scriabin demands a lot of the
performer. He sets extreme hurdles which the pianist
must navigate with utmost lightness of touch. Multi-
layered pedalling is always on the menu, too. e mazurka
is distinctive because of its rhythm, and it is important
to nd a way to stay true to this rhythmical lilt without
making it obvious. e mazurka rhythm should be a kind
of undercurrent which supports the musical structure
above it. is is true in both Chopin and Scriabin.
Scriabins mazurkas show the evolution of his musical
language, and this is partly why I chose to present them
on my album in chronological order. If you listen to the Op
40 set and compare them with Op 3, it is easy to hear how
the young composer idolised Chopin yet quickly began to
nd his own path.
Scriabins mini tone poems require imagination, an
open mind and daring: some of these works have no

tempo indications, so the pianist is free to enter into
communication with the composer and experiment with
di erent results. e Op 40 mazurkas (plus a few from
Op 25) already point towards his incredible late style, as
heard in Prometheus or the Ninth and Tenth Sonatas. ey
have absolute clarity of musical purpose and thought: he
not only knows where the music is going, but how to lead
the performer there. is even holds true in works where
there is little or no indication of tempo or other markings
the music itself lays out a clear path. We can only dream
where Scriabin would have taken the mazurka if he had
composed some more in his late period. He was too
creative to be dogmatic.
Scriabin was a contradictory innovator and tonal
alchemist who believed he could change the world through
music. To understand his oeuvre, it is important to know
how much his mystical ideas and synaesthesia meant
to him. is is particularly crucial for the performer.
Synesthetic perceptions vary from person to person, so
even a pianist with synaesthesia will not necessarily hear
and see the combinations of sounds and colours in the way
Scriabin himself did. But knowing that this is how Scriabin
perceived his own works helps to enrich the musical palette
in every way, especially in terms of tonal range and colours,
and the e ects they have in performance.
www.international-piano.com
PERSONAL TOUCH
Working on this album has not only widened the
horizons of Scriabins creativity for me, it has also
expanded my knowledge of his contemporaries. One
of them, Alexei Stanchinsky (1888-1914), is an equally
enigmatic gure in Russian music of the time. Had he
lived longer than his 26 years, he might have given us
works that would put his name on every pianist s map
because he was uniquely placed to take Scriabins musical
language further than anyone else. But all we have is a
relatively small number of works that reveal his original
creative genius and leave us wishing for more. I plan to
spend more time with Stanchinsky s music in the near
future, culminating in my next recording for Ondine. IP
Peter Jablonski’s new album of Scriabin’s
mazurkas is now available from Ondine
(ODE13292).
Jablonksi is the co-director of Karlskrona
International Piano Festival alongside
musicologist, writer, presenter, pianist and opera
director Anastasia Belina. peterjablonski.com
FRANZ LISZT
International Piano May/June 2020 27
 MANUFACTURERS
Pianos on every piazza
There are more strings to Cremona’s bow than Stradivarius. Jed Distler visited last year’s
Cremona Piano Experience and found himself performing as well as reporting on the event’s
diverse and abundant attractions
M
ention Cremona to any musician, and the
rst word that comes to mind is violin .
More speci cally, the city was home to the
in uential luthier Antonio Stradivari, whose
innovations in violin manufacturing became the so-called
gold standard . Almost every square and shop window I
encountered during my visit to Cremona last autumn sported
Stradivarius posters, literature and instrument facsimiles.
During one walk, however, I started to notice upright
pianos catty-cornered around the historic centre, marked
with signs inviting people to play. A passerby casually
poked around on one instrument, while across the piazza,
a talented teenager brilliantly sailed through a Bach
Partita on another. All of this was a prelude to Cremona
Piano Experience, which, since 2011, has been a major
component of Cremona Musica International Exhibitions,
one of Europes largest annual instrument exhibitions and,
in itself, a part of the city s CremonaFiere.
Pianist Roberto Prosseda has been the Piano
Experiences artistic coordinator since 2014. From the
start, he explained, our mission has been to attract
the piano world s main representatives and operators,
including piano makers, pianists (classical, jazz and
contemporary), piano teachers, piano technicians and
tuners, piano critics and piano competitions, in order to
facilitate the development
of the cultural environment
around the piano and also
reach out to the general
music-loving public.
Over the course
of three full
28 May/June 2020 International Piano
days, thousands ambled from showroom to showroom,
taking in a remarkable variety of events as well as trying
out the numerous pianos and keyboards on display.
Prosseda seemed to be everywhere at once, elding text
messages, greeting VIPs, introducing programmes, and
basically keeping his cool head and a able heart a oat
and accessible.
Year by year, Prosseda has worked to expand the cultural
reach and artistic scope of Piano Experience: In 2016 we
started what you might call mini piano festivals for each
piano brand, adding the performative aspect (recitals,
masterclasses, showcases) to the commercial exhibition.
Based on the positive audience response, weve decided to
go further in this direction bringing more and more great
pianists to Cremona, from international luminaries such
as Alfred Brendel and Louis Lortie to some of Italy s top
pianists, including Maurizio Baglini, Vanessa Benelli Mosell,
Pietro De Maria, Filippo Gamba, Andrea Lucchesini, Igor
Roma, Mariangela Vacatello... and many more.
W hen Prosseda invited me to attend Piano
Experience as part of a group of international
journalists, he asked if I could give a presentation of some
sort. I mentioned my new solo album, Fearless Monk, and
to my unexpected delight, Prosseda proposed that I give
a one-hour recital in the Steinway showroom. It s not
every day that you get the opportunity to participate
in an event of this magnitude both as journalist and
performer, so of course I said yes.
I was one of several pianists scheduled to
perform in the Sala Cristofori, which played host
to instruments from the
Steinway Piano Gallery
that is part of Passadori
Pianoforti in Brescia.
While rehearsing
www.international-piano.com

on a gorgeously sonorous and well-regulated concert
grand, I noticed that one of other pianos was equipped
with Steinway s Spirio high de nition player piano
technology. Since I ve recorded numerous items for the
Spirio catalogue, I adjusted my programme to include a
Spirio selection, and the audience got to
hear me playing one piece without my
actually touching the keys!
It s di cult to absorb the sonorous
presence of a nine-foot Steinway within
the Sala Cristofori s relatively small
dimensions, and, as a consequence,
the climaxes of Liszt s Mephisto Waltz
No 1 sometimes felt overpowering in
Ingolf Wunder s hands. By contrast, the
dynamic contrasts and nuances he found
in Mozart s D minor Fantasia K397 and
a pair of Chopin Nocturnes worked well
in this intimate environment. However,
it was the seasoned artist Konstantin
Scherbakov who most successfully
realised the Steinway s expressive
potential. He opened his programme with two eloquent
Tchaikovsky solos, followed by Chopins F minor Fantasy,
Ballade No 3 and Andante spianato e grande polonaise all
rendered with a strong yet tasteful individual pro le.
e relatively spacious Sala Zelioli Lanzini more readily
leant itself to solo piano recitals, not to mention the subtle
registral di erentiation of the onstage Steingraeber grand
piano. Here, I caught two wonderfully varied programmes.
Distinctive as Finnish pianist Risto-Matti Marins
recordings are, he clearly gains added inspiration from
audiences. Marin unfolded the Wagner-Liszt Liebestod
from Tristan und Isolde in slow-motion paragraphs,
varying the potentially problematic tremolos in terms of
speed, volume and density. He also took great care over
the numerous tone clusters and haunting repeated notes
throughout excerpts from Matthew Whittall s Twelve
Preludes after Walt Whitman. In this context, Marins
energetic and extroverted Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase
surprised. Roland P ntinens recital impressively
showcased his virtuoso hands and composer s brain. He
sang out the octaves in Chopins Ballade No 4 rather than
treating them like an Olympic sprint, and he brought
palpable narrative trajectory to Liszt s Les jeux d eaux
la Villa d Este and Debussy s Lisle joyeuse. P ntinens own
composition, the grippingly original tude ergonomique
( la maniŁre de omas Newman) might be described
as a 21st-century answer to Chopins Raindrop Prelude.
His unusually vehement, hard-hitting Ravel Menuet
antique took me aback, but P ntinen caressed his encore,
Rachmaninov s G-sharp minor Prelude, to high heaven.
As a Steinway Artist, I risk committing heresy to say
that the new Fazioli 308 concert grand in the Guarneri
del Gesø hall bowled me over. In one of his introductions,
Prosseda explained that this particular instrument had
the ability to change its character from pianist to pianist,
and he was absolutely right. A fetching group of four
www.international-piano.com
MANUFACTURERS
Chopin Waltzes sounded invitingly Busoni Competition
intimate and transparent, as if pianist laureate Ivan Krpan
Eliane Reyes had transported her performs in Cremona’s
listeners from a packed showroom Fazioli Festival
to a 19th-century Parisian salon.
Ivan Krpan, the winner of the 61st Inset: Roberto
International Busoni Competition, gave Prosseda: ‘The piano
an imaginative and full-bodied account is a universal tool with
of the Brahms Variations on a eme by which we share music,
Schumann Op 9. But the 308 truly came beauty and human
into its own when Inna Faliks served up an unusually values’
probing and meticulously detailed account of Schumanns
Symphonic Etudes Op 13.
Cremona Musica and the Italian Branch of Yamaha
Music Europe teamed up to sponsor a competition where
composers submitted works written speci cally for the
Yamaha Disklavier. e weekends concluding event
featured the ve nalists, whose respective pieces exploited
this technology s potential far beyond the capabilities of
two human hands in real time. After the ve compositions
were presented, the international jury deliberated and
ultimately awarded the rst prize of a Yamaha DU1 Enspire
ST Disklavier piano to the Croatian-born American
composer, performer and scholar Zvonimir Nagy. I
understood the appeal of his brash and exuberant piece,
though my vote would have gone to Giovanni Sparano,
whose ostinato-based work seemed more succinct and
original by comparison. In any event, plans for a second
composition competition are underway, along with new
competition open to amateur pianists.
Exciting as it is to be swept up in this intense keyboard-
centric environment, Prosseda puts music rst and
foremost. I feel that the piano is not just merely an
instrument. It is a universal tool with which we share
music, beauty and human values. Cremona Musica is the
right place to do this, with 20,000 people attending from
all over the world. It provides a unique opportunity for
people to meet, to share their experiences from di erent
elds of music, to start new projects and collaborations,
and to introduce di erent perspectives and points of view.
We believe that this is the way to improve our world and
discover new enthusiasms in music and our lives. IP
Cremona Piano Experience 2020 will take place from 25 to 27 September as part
of this year’s Cremona Musica International Exhibitions & Festival.
cremonamusica.com/piano-experience
International Piano May/June 2020 29
 MANUFACTURERS
Grand designs
Casio’s latest digital pianos combine state-of-the art technology with sounds developed in
collaboration with Bechstein. Colin Clark reveals which instrument deserves the laurels
C
asios agship Celviano Grand Hybrid range has
recently upped the ante with two new models
promising signi cant improvements over their
predecessors. Both instruments are advertised
as boasting a new speaker system enabling enhanced
sound projection and reinforced bass reproduction while
an improved touch response o ers greater control of
sound and more dynamic contrast .
I paid a pre-lockdown trip to Musicroom in central
London to put these claims to the test. e GP-510
normally retails at £3,895 and the GP-310 is priced at
£2,735, though both were slightly discounted at the time
of my visit. More Grand than Ever is Casios tagline.
ey each come with a ve-year product warranty
from Casio. Werner Albrecht, a master piano maker as
well as service director at Bechstein, worked with Casio
to develop realistic sounds which reproduce the decay
of actual strings. e Celviano Grand Hybrid uses Casios
AiR Grand Sound Source to convince listeners that the
instrument is an acoustic grand piano. AiR short for
Casio’s GP-510 Celviano Grand Hybrid
30 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Acoustic and intelligent Resonator uses linear morphing
to create natural transitions between dynamics.
e GP-510 features a new six-speaker system (Grand
Speaker System II) that o ers a wide dynamic range, and
with Natural Grand Hammer Action combined with a
new touch response and pedal design, the idea is to make
the instrument as believable as possible. Austrian spruce
is used for the full-length wooden keys. e fulcrum
point is the same as that of a grand piano, while a graded
hammer action aims to be as responsive as possible to
the touch. A solid wooden base is also used, while a pedal
simulator aims for maximal realism a vital part of the
equation if the idea of practice is to ring true.
e by-now standard feature of Concert Play (classics
to play along with) is present along with a Hall Simulator.
A moving hammer mechanism, which works in sync with
the digital technology, is best observed when playing the
instrument as a piano. e available piano options are
Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna, while the simulator o ers
a variety of acoustics (including the rather surprising
venues of Sydney Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral
and Wembley Stadium). You can even get it to imitate a
harpsichord or a honky-tonk jazz piano, but these feel like
gimmicks that are likely to wear thin pretty quickly.
e Berlin Grand on its default setting is the
brightest and most comfortable to play, with
Hamburg and Vienna in various degrees of
mu ing or softening, depending on the player s
preference. e Hamburg Grand on its default
setting has a lovely soft touch.
e keypad-operated menu on the piano
cheek is easy to navigate. In case of mistakes,
simply pressing exit takes the user back to
the home screen. Bass response was more
than adequate (try the climax of Debussy s
CathØdrale engloutie ) and the keys feel
beautiful, even for scale work.
e GP-310 immediately feels rather cheaper
(in fairness, it literally is, but youre still looking
at nearly £3k). Although the Berlin setting again
feels the most comfortable, it has less body than
on the GP-510 and all three (Berlin, Vienna,
Hamburg) now feel a little mu ed. It was
interesting to compare the sustaining power of
the individual notes on both instruments using the
piece chosen for last months IP Masterclass by Kathryn
Stott: FaurØs Nocturne No 4 in E- at major, bar 8, where
a D-natural must be sustained over four whole beats in
 MANUFACTURERS

slow tempo. e GP-510 felt like a normal piano and

there was no problem. With the same settings, and the
same weighting and projection, the GP-310 found the note
disappearing well before the next bar line: much more
punch was needed.
Nor do the GP-310 pedals feel natural like those of the
GP-510 (the Vienna setting on the GP-310 sounds like
youve got the soft pedal down permanently anyway). Plus,
some of the notes sound like they have a little spike , as
if extra harmonics have suddenly been added, so it is not
100 per cent even.
For my previous article examining three digital pianos
from di erent manufacturers (see IP October 2019, Digital
dexterity , page 25), all the instruments were at roughly
the same price point, so it s instructive to see what
impact a price di erential can make. If I were to spend
£3,895 on the GP-510, I doubt I would be disappointed.
But if shelled out £2,735 for the GP-310, I de nitely would
be disappointed. e GP-510 is in nitely better, more
responsive and feels like an acoustic instrument, whereas
it s easy to detect the compensating aspects of the GP-310.
My advice would be to dig deep in your pockets if you
possibly can.

music.casio.com/en/products/digital_pianos/ghs ‘The Berlin Grand is the brightest and most comfortable to play’

NEW DISCOVERY A previously unknown and unpublished piano piece by Ludwig van Beethoven was found by the editor-in-chief
of the Wiener Urtext Edition during research in the music collection of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus in Vienna.
HITHERTO UNKNOWN PIANO PIECE The work is notated on a double sheet with sketches by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1790–1792. The 16-bar
OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN!
piece shows the musical character of a Ländler. Beethoven notated the complete melody voice of his piece, even
‘LÄNDLER-LIKE DANCE’ reworking it in a few places, but the accompaniment is written in abbreviated form.
Editor: Jochen Reutter
Fingerings: Nils Franke
Difficulty: easy
UT 50296
NEW
Languages: ger/en

THREE PIANO
WoO 47
SONATAS W

Beethoven Three Piano Sonatas WoO 47

UT 50426

Beethoven
Drei Klaviersonaten WoO 47
Kurfürstensonaten

Reutter / Franke

Wiener Urtext Edition

Schottt / Universal Edition
Schot

UT 50426

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 31

 ONLINE RESOURCES
Going digital
The coronavirus lockdown has prompted numerous pianists to take to the internet and share
free performances for their fans worldwide. Owen Mortimer$æłºœłºŁæŒ
ŁøŁıæŁºıłŒººŁı
T
his is an unprecedented moment in human
history where virtually everyone on the planet
is doing the same thing: staying safe indoors
with their loved ones. e danger of cabin fever
is correspondingly huge, but for music-lovers theres a
wealth of material available online to enthral, inspire and
stave o boredom. With so much extra time on our hands,
why not set aside some moments to surf the net and nd
out what your favourite pianists are doing?
One of the rst artists to launch her own series of daily
music videos was the Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt,
who posted her rst mini-recital on 27 March. Yesterday
in the quiet of the night I recorded this 10-bar meditation
by Bach, she wrote. A beautiful gem with many problems
waiting to be solved his Little Prelude in D minor
BWV940. e response from fans was instantaneous and
wholly positive, encouraging her to keep on posting.
BERND EBERLE
Angela Hewitt: ‘There
are no two ways about
it: people always like
Bach best’
32 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Speaking to IP from her home town of Ottawa, Hewitt
explained why she feels it s so important to share music
during this period: I think it soothes many people,
and takes their minds o the terrible situation were
in even just for a moment. It brings back memories of
happy times, because certain pieces can recall people or
moments in our lives, perhaps long gone. Music sustains
us and gives us an important outlet for our feelings. And
if it brings a smile to the face or a laugh, then so much
the better!
Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky is similarly
enthusiastic and sees streaming as a potential force for
good, allowing classical music to reach new audiences.
For me, this is an equation of rights for residents of
capitals and remote places in the world, he says. Such
union of residents of metropolises and smallest provincial
towns is very important and pleasing for me.
London-based Russian-born pianist Yulia Chaplina
has launched her own Coronavirus Support initiative,
featuring regular, short videos of popular repertoire. At
this stage when the whole world is so fragile and the
news is dominated by the pandemic, it s really important
to share something light and uplifting, she explains. Her
typical concert programmes feature weighty repertoire by
composers such as Shostakovich, Proko ev and Weinberg,
but she says, My mind can t bear such tragic music at
the moment . She adds: I nd Bachs music has almost
healing properties for my mind.
Hewitt echoes this sentiment when she says, ere
are no two ways about it: people always like Bach best.
Lugansky eschews the idea of situational repertoire , but
believes that great music Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
Brahms, Franck, Rachmaninov, Proko ev can and
should be performed in any situation and to any people.
He has recorded two recitals in Moscow thus far, featuring
Beethovens Sonata in E major Op 109 and Franck’s
Prélude, Aria et Final, both of which he feels will give
comfort and hope to the listener .
Late Beethoven has also made it to the shortlist
of British pianist Christina McMaster, whose new
initiative called Lie Down + Listen combines music with
meditation and restorative yoga. I think music which has
a spiritual element at its core is important as there is a
lot of questioning and soul-searching going on right now,
says McMaster. e ashy virtuosity which were drawn
to as young pianists feels less relevant. She is currently
 ONLINE RESOURCES

planning a meditation session which will be followed by something else altogether. I just hope it s not too long
the second movement of Beethovens Op 111: Music like before people can congregate again, otherwise were in for
that becomes a meditation in itself because you can t help big trouble. IP Nikolai Lugansky:
but be entirely immersed and uplifted by it. ‘Applause and shouts
All this free music is wonderful for audiences, but what Turn to page 9 for further details of online streams of “bravo” mean a lot to
do the artists gain from it? I want to do something for available during the coronavirus lockdown. me and I miss them’
society but also it makes me feel better too, says Chaplina,
while Hewitt admits that if my friends and fans are happy,
then I am happy too. Lugansky is more rueful: I found it
unusual to get up from the piano after the concert and not
to meet any spontaneous reaction, he explains. Only now
have I realised that the applause and shouts of bravo
mean a lot to me and I miss them. I think for every artist it
is a huge energy boost.
Indeed, we all hope it will soon be safe for concert
halls to reopen. Hewitt is particularly concerned that
free online streams shouldn t be seen as an alternative
to paying for tickets. I hope it doesn t set the dangerous
precedent of classical music being available always for
free, she says. at worries me because so many peoples
livelihoods depend on it not being free. And anyway, why

JEAN-BAPTISTE MILLOT
should it be? eres still nothing like a live concert with
a concentrated and enthusiastic audience in a beautiful
concert hall. Plus having a great concert grand piano in
marvellous acoustics (not ones living room) well, that s

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 33

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 SOUND TRUTHS
Murray McLachlan weighs up the pros and cons of traditional
piano pedagogy

Part I: To exercise or not?

F or as long as I can remember, piano

teachers and pianists have belonged to one
of two groups: those who stress the need to
spend at least 30 minutes a day undertaking
a strict regimen of exercises by Hanon,
Pischna, Brahms and Cortot, often followed by
scales and arpeggios plus studies by Czerny,
Clementi, Cramer, etc; and those who do not.
Renowned pianists and pedagogues who
followed or recommended technical regimes
include Isidor Philipp, Adele Marcus and
Peter Feuchtwanger, along with world famous
gures such as Gina Bachauer, Horowitz and
Rachmaninov (the latter was an advocate not
only of Hanon but also of Czerny).
In the do not camp there are those who
spend a great deal of money on endless
tomes of exercises and etudes, only to look
at the rst few pages before allowing the
material to lie gathering dust in a bottom
drawer. Many do not pianists feel a vague
sense of guilt that they are not working as
hard as they should be on their technical
development, that they lack systematic
understanding and logic, and that they are
therefore incomplete as pianists. Yet artists
in this category include some of the most
distinguished performers and pedagogues.
Perhaps they shouldn t feel so insecure:
many performers who don t do keyboard
exercises are supremely con dent. eir
playing often exudes ease and joy. It would
be preposterous to suggest that they lack
systematic development or thoroughness
in their techniques. I could give many
examples, but one that stands out for me
is the young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki
who, at the age of 12, con dently and
categorically told me he never practised
Hanon or any other exercises. In spite of this,
his astonishing facility, control, focus and Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was an advocate of Hanon and Czerny
e ortless pianism was apparent even at that
age, and his repertoire embraced numerous a solid international career. In interview, Lu Stephen Houghs tutor) was by many accounts
Chopin studies (pieces he went on to record immediately recalled the value of working a rm believer in the exercises of Brahms.
triumphantly for DG). Does this mean Hanon on Hanon with his rst teacher in Boston. It was therefore shocking to read Walter
is therefore a complete waste of time? Donohoe has mentioned on many occasions Ponces recently published polemical study,
Not when you talk to Eric Lu, winner how important he still nds Hanon to warm e Tyranny of Tradition in Piano Playing: A
of the 2018 Leeds Competition, or Peter up. Indeed, Donohoes mentor in Manchester, critical history from Clementi to the Present
Donohoe, another outstanding artist with the late Deryck Wyndham (also for a time (reviewed in IP January, page 88), which

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 35

 EDUCATION
suggests that Brahms exercises were not even
meant for publication! Ponces fascinating
230-page survey is totally engrossing, bringing
together the history of piano pedagogy in an
entirely fresh way. Nor is he one to shy away
from expressing strong opinions. Responding
to Hanons claim that his Virtuoso Pianist in
60 Exercises takes an hour to play through
and, if practised daily, can supply a key to all
di culties of execution , Ponce responds: We
cannot say for certain whether Hanon was
being sincere or if he was just a con man. In any
case, his method is a ludicrous, naive aspiration
of a thoroughly untalented musician. Yet
Hanons collection of exercises remains one of
the best-selling of all piano publications.
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
Walter Ponce: ‘Hanon’s method is a ludicrous, naive aspiration of a thoroughly untalented musician’
36 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Ponces views are certain to infuriate
and provoke controversy. He contrasts the
educational freedom described in Jean-
Jacques Rousseaus 1762 book Emile with
Muzio Clementi s Gradus ad Parnassum, the
monumental collection of studies which
have challenged pianists for centuries. Ponce
fervently believes that Clementi leads to
mindless mechanical rote learning (with
consequences to mental and physical health)
while Rousseau helps to develop independent
thinking, self-determination and continued
health and creativity.
ere does seem to be something like
Calvinist su ering in much of the spin
associated with collections of exercises
produced throughout the 19th century. Ponce
notes the Christian parallels, quoting Hans
von B low: I crucify, like a good Christ, the
esh of my ngers, in order to make them
obedient, submissive machines of the mind .
When such self- agellation at the instrument
is accompanied by submissive hero worship
of a celebrity teacher, the potential for abuse
and long-term damage is considerable. Ponce
is fearless and persuasive in naming and
shaming many famous pedagogues in post-
Clementi history who abused their power.
He contrasts this approach with other, more
enlightened gures such as Liszt, Neuhaus,
Perahia and Fleisher toweringly inspirational
artists who seem to lead from the Rousseau
standpoint. ese are his preferred role
models: musicians who never attempted to
indoctrinate, manipulate or clone students
they worked with in any way.
In Ponces interpretation of piano history,
Clementi emerges as a villain. He is seen
as a ruthless businessman, the exploiter of
John Field and the author of too many dull
studies designed to make students su er, stop
thinking for themselves and succumb to the
methodology of their teachers. Clementis
all-encompassing in uence not only came to
dominate piano teaching in London but also
piano manufacturing, and his control freakery
is viewed as the beginning of a long tradition of
pianists spending extended periods studying
musical material that never gets used in the
concert hall. Ponce sees this as akin to learning
Latin before embarking on a modern language,
which in his view is completely pointless. He
prefers to go straight to Bachs Well-Tempered
Clavier. Why bother with Hanon when you can
use rst-rate concert music for development
and systematic study?
Overall, Ponce views the work and
achievements of Czerny, Hanon, Pischna,
Friedrich Wieck (Clara Schumanns father) and
many others as more harmful than helpful.
eir exercises and studies are intimidating,
o -putting descendants from the Clementi
Gradus model. e prefaces to these tomes
can be especially harmful, encouraging the
inexperienced player to get locked into hours
of dull, repetitive practice. In his Opus 337
exercises, for instance, Czerny recommends
the repetition of each bar between 20 and 30
times for an hour a day without interruptions !
ankfully, most reputable teachers now
realise that mindless mechanical drilling will fail
to inspire and motivate pupils, and few would
dispute the need to modify Czerny s advice for
modern practice. So, is Ponce correct? Is it a

waste of time practising exercises? Well, no
and yes! As is so often the case in pedagogy,
materials in themselves are not as harmful as
the way in which they can be used/abused.
Penelope Roskell would surely agree. Her
wonderfully practical, lucid and inspirational
new book e Complete Pianist (see IP April,
page 40) makes frequent use of relevant
exercises that illustrate, enhance, convince
and develop technical points. She is full of
fun but also concentrated endeavour as she
pinpoints the essence of sti ness and tension,
nding ways to cope with the demands of the
keyboard while remaining healthy.
e crucial point is that Roskell, like all
wise pianists and teachers, never stops
listening and thinking. Her QR-coded
book demonstrates this brilliantly, o ering
numerous video clips to help guide the reader.
Indeed, isolating keyboard manoeuvres in
a pure form can be an excellent basis for
A tale of two thinkers: ‘Ponce fervently believes that Muzio Clementi (left) leads to mindless
mechanical rote, while Jean-Jacques Rousseau (right) helps to develop independent thinking’
www.international-piano.com
developing self-con dence and a sense of
adventure at the keyboard.
Exercises come into their own when played
in di erent keys, and transposition (along
with symmetrical inversion) is a great way
into improvisation and composition. In his
Klavier bung, Ferruccio Busoni (a towering
pianistic gure who is cruelly brushed over
in Ponces book) demonstrates how to link
repertoire from di erent eras by exposing a
technical issue in a piece, developing it into
a study, then examining excerpts by other
composers that mirror the di culty in question.
One of the main weaknesses of Ponces
book is his strange assumption that nger-
independence exercises lead to injury. He is
particularly dismissive of exercises in which
notes are held with one or more ngers while
others play short note values around them. He
cites, among many, Wiecks Study No 32 (see
above) for its negative qualities.
EDUCATION
Friedrich Wieck ••• Study No 32
Ponce seems unable to understand an
apparent contradiction about piano technique
that is at the heart of all healthy development: if
you play the above exercise with locked wrists
and hammer ngers , it will lead to injury and
a ghastly sound. But if you free yourself up and
try a touch and press approach to articulation
for the shorter notes, you will develop excellent
co-ordination which you can then apply to
thousands of similar contexts from Bach
through Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninov and
beyond. e principle of rm ngers with loose
arms and wrists is fundamental but Ponce
makes no reference to it in his book.
Ponces key message is important but why
does he not expand upon his argument? After
all, mindless mechanical playing and practising
is not limited to exercises and studies. Sadly,
too many students work at repertoire with
their minds closed and ears switched o .
Mindless practising embraces all forms of
repertoire and is a problem the world over.
Pianists young and old are equally guilty of it.
e mistake Ponce makes is to assume
that Clementi and his like are intrinsically
unworthwhile. ere are very few pianist-
teachers who would agree with this. On the
other hand, it is madness to swallow the
naive claims made by many collections of
19th-century studies. We have to be ruthlessly
selective when choosing what to work on.
Learning all 400 of Louis Plaidy s Technical
Studies for Piano Playing would be a waste of
time but that doesnt mean we should reject all
the exercises.
e opportunity to explore technical
principles and challenges in a concentrated,
methodical way through exercises is invaluable
for healthy and reliable co-ordination. ese
exercises can then be expanded upon to develop
stamina, facility, awareness and creativity by
way of studies and repertoire excerpts plus
free composition and improvisation. So lets
follow Busonis eclectic, intelligent and curious
approach, connecting technical exercises to
everything else we do as mindful musicians. IP
International Piano May/June 2020 37

Carlo Grante explores the constantly shifting moods of Scarlatti’s dancelike
Sonata in E major K216
S carlatti was such a proli c composer
that even if you know 30 of his sonatas,
that s only around ve per cent of his total
output. Editions of selected works often
stick to publishing the single-movement
sonatas which reinforce familiar stereotypes:
brilliance, melancholy, amenco sounds
and dancing rhythms. Just as the expression
Lisztian octaves reduces Liszt s creative
e orts to an unjustly narrow de nition, the
expression Scarlattian technique suggests
mere quick and clear ngerwork.
Ralph Kirkpatrick, in his epochal
monograph Domenico Scarlatti (Princeton
University Press, 1953), sets out guidelines for
formal analysis of the sonatas. ese are still
valid today, though they have been expanded
and re ned in later studies by Joel Shevelo
( e keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti: A
re-evaluation of the present state of knowledge
in the light of the sources PhD thesis,
Brandeis University, 1970), Dean Sutcli e ( e
Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and
Eighteenth-Century Musical Style Cambridge
University Press, 2003), and Chris Willis
(Performance, narrativity, improvisation
and theatricality in the keyboard sonatas of
Domenico Scarlatti PhD thesis, Cambridge
University, 2007).
anks to their holistic but detailed vision,
these publications shed light on Scarlatti s
compositional procedures, revealing some
surprises about how the ow of consciousness
is represented in his music a topic to which
little analytical attention was given until
after Debussy and 20th-century musical
modernism.
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti needs little
introduction. He was born in Naples on 26
October 1685 (the same year as Bach and
Handel). At the age of 18, he settled in Rome,
the city where he grew up musically under the
in uence of Bernardo Pasquini and Francesco
Gasparini. In 1720, Scarlatti was o ered an
important position at Lisbons patriarchal
chapel by the Portuguese ambassador to the
Vatican, the Marquis de Fontes. Although
38 May/June 2020 International Piano
MASTERCLASS
he did not accept, Scarlatti left his post at
the chapel of St Peter s Basilica in Rome and
travelled to London and Lisbon, where he was
a harpsichordist at the royal court from 1720-
1728. is position brought with it the task of
educating Infanta (princess) Maria BÆrbara.
e resolute, experimental and audacious
style of his keyboard sonatas is therefore
also a direct result of educational necessity.
Following her marriage to Ferdinand VI,
Maria BÆrbara invited Scarlatti to the Spanish
court. In 1733, after four years in Seville, he
settled in Madrid where he lived until his
death in 1757.
‘Scarlatti’s “Spanish
blues” appear
frequently, like clouds
passing across the sun’
Scarlatti s compositions have been the
subject of many fascinating structural
examinations, leading to the suggestion that
his idiosyncrasies are purely psychological.
Scholars have discovered processes that
can be attributed more easily to pure syntax
(the musics horizontal unfolding through
time) than to traditional musical language.
e music, therefore, unravels and creates a
discourse as it develops through time. Unlike
the compact perfection of Bachs music,
which manages to maintain internal hyper-
consistency at a micro- and macro-structural
level, the Italianate approach of the period
( from Vivaldi to Platti) shows a tendency
towards discursive, forward-looking musical
structures. Such music has a teleological
structure (rather than the more kaleidoscopic
design of German Baroque music) that
ultimately led to embryonic sonata forms.
Scarlatti s musical consciousness
contains a uniquely idiosyncratic Italianness
in the way he plays with the ow of time,
particularly through his use of what
Shevelo calls vamp . Vamps are ostinato
sections in which the music stands still,
creating dramatic suspension. is term has
roots in the ancient English vampe and the
French avant-piØ. It is commonly used in
musical theatre, where it indicates a moment
of suspension before the protagonist enters
or returns to the stage. Similarly,
Scarlattian vamps provide dramatic
suspension, often heralding fascinating
journeys of harmonic innovation.
Shevelo nds vamp sections in about
50 of Scarlatti s sonatas, including K216
in E major. In spite of its exotic avour, it
is based on the binary form often used by
Italian galant composers. Contrasts and
compensation within asymmetry are true
hallmarks of Scarlatti s compositional style,
and this sonata strikes a balance between
folk elements, galant surprise features and
pre-Classical form.
As I stated in the beginning, it is tempting
to categorise such a gigantic body of
works according to the general character,
compositional style, shape, etc of each
piece. As such, the Sonata in E major K216
is included in a category that I call spring
sonatas. ese pieces are characterised by
sunny and joyful opening gestures, often in
the form of an upward melody or (as in the
case here) a fanfare, suggested by the chordal
theme in double stops.
Hinting at his common practice of
starting a sonata with two parts in canon
or imitation, here Scarlatti uses a pick-up
bar as curtain-raiser, followed by a repeated
one-bar motive, transposed down an octave
(bars 2-5). e small upbeat note on each
bar suggests an appoggiatura, not a grace
note. Already in these initial bars the music
o ers opportunities for a diversi ed approach
in touch and articulation: legato accented
appoggiaturas, a non-legato upper part and
staccato skips in the left hand (contributing to
the musics dancelike feeling).
Your basic touch should follow Daniel
Gottob T rks de nition in his 1789 treatise
www.international-piano.com

STEVE J SHERMAN
Klavierschule: a neutral approach neither
bound by legato nor separated by staccato.
is is far from a misunderstanding of non-
legato as an imitation of the harpsichord
sound. Non-legato touch survived well
into the Wiener Klassik era but faded
due to the in uence of Clementi and his
London Pianoforte School (and his epigone,
Beethoven). Although the 19th century saw it
transformed by a new approach to keyboard
sonority known as jeu perlØ , non-legato touch
was preserved in its original form in Eastern
European piano schools.
In bars 6-11, the right hand fools the listener
with a sonic illusion featuring one voice
notated in two-part writing. Keep the mood
cheery with a non-legato touch and accents
on the syncopated A and high G-sharp on
the third beat of the bar. Such an outburst
www.international-piano.com
of joy and cheerfulness is soon followed by
a typically Scarlattian change of mood and
mode (bars 11-14). e sonorities darken
and are heard in the minor mode (a rhetoric
gesture known as mutatio toni ) in what
appears at rst to be a perpetual two-part
canon. Most of Scarlatti sonatas employ this
style of Italian writing featuring two parts,
albeit with a much richer sound canvas then
the more transparent galant textures of his
Italian contemporaries. is section bene ts
from a scaled down dynamic and a more
legato touch.
Scarlatti s Spanish blues appear frequently,
like clouds passing across the sun to reveal
its festive, optimistic potential. I recommend
responding with subtle, short hairpins . A
Scarlatti sonata can occupy a single mood
(such as the F minor melancholic sonatas)
MASTERCLASS
Carlo Grante: ‘What keeps this piece
together is the performer’s rhythmic
solidity and metric accentuation’
or present a succession of diverse moods
and characters in respective short structural
zones . Even when one such zone includes
juxtaposed voices, registral layers and
touches, the mood should still be uni ed
and consistent.
Beethoven ushered in a musical
Copernican Revolution which allows the
vertical juxtaposition of contrasting moods
and characters, but this does not exist in
Scarlatti: even at its most complex, the array
of ever-changing moods is perceived in the
temporal unfolding of the music, rather
than a strati ed texture. Each element
must contribute without contradicting the
prevalent mood.
In bars 19-20 the music begins to gain
bite . e right hand grace note is followed
by an accented syncopated A-sharp, whose
International Piano May/June 2020 39
 MASTERCLASS
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
role as leading tone of the relative major
mode (we have reached a structural point
that Kirkpatrick called crux ) is denied by the
sudden appearance of a diminished chord.
is dramatic surprise bene ts from a slight
accentuation and dynamic intensi cation.
e left-hand embellished G sounds best if
started on the actual note. Meanwhile, the
weak-weak-strong anapest rhythm (a device
found everywhere in Scarlatti) in the right
hand builds tension and bene ts from an
accentuated E .
e interesting hemiola in bars 28-32 is best
played with a short touch, accentuated by a
sharp staccato on each note and underpinned
by a crescendo that increases dramatic
tension. ere are only about 10 bars left
before the rst half reaches its cadential point
(after which one can expect from Scarlatti
extra-long post-cadential afterthoughts) but
more discoveries are still on the way: a clever
manipulation of what had been heard in bars
6-10 and 22-27.
So much minor mode in an E major
sonata is compensated by a long E major
codetta in which semiquaver passagework
enters to appease rather than excite the
listener s expectations. I personally prefer to
play such passages legato (a departure from
the conventional approach to quick
Scarlatti ngerwork) due to the mood of
resolve they convey.
Yet more new material appears suddenly in
bars 54-61: I like to make a commedia dellarte
moment out of this by sharply accentuating
the lower notes of the broken octaves. e nal
40 May/June 2020 International Piano
cadenza arrives, with the typical descending
melodic pro le that was to become a hallmark
of Wiener Klassik compositions.
At last, we encounter the Scarlattian
feature I discussed earlier: the start of the B
section ba es the listener by suspending
musical consciousness via a seemingly
unending vamp section (bars 69-88),
disappearing with the same ease with which
it appears. is vamp section also plays
host to intense modulatory activity which
is at once repressed and uneasy. It puts me
in mind of Beethovens Tempest Sonata Op
31/2, which features a vamp section in the
third movement (bars 335-349). Beethoven
seems to o er a glimpse of Debussy s Images
before bringing us back to reality just as
Scarlatti does, with the sudden appearance of
a dominant harmony to return to the pieces
structural design.
What follows re-states the structure of
the rst half ( from bar 2) in the tonic, re-
establishing balance and the reassurance of
structural solidity: all ends well. What keeps
this piece together is the performer s rhythmic
solidity and metric accentuation.
Scarlatti s syntactic units can be quite short:
if the so-called Mozart e ect is produced by
the alternation of musical sections lasting
20-30 seconds (which is apparently the same
length as a burst of cognitive activity), the
Scarlatti e ect would be more suited to a
hyperactive mind with its constant, quick and
short-lived changes in the direction of its train
of thought. In just ve measures (bars 22-27),
for example, we nd a contraction of two
Phrygian cadences, concealed by omissions,
inversions and superpositions (Kirkpatrick).
ese are followed by an ingenious use of
hemiolas in the lower voice of the right hand
juxtaposed against a clear 3/4 metre in the
left hand.
Again, the music keeps changing its mind
with short sections following one another to
a short (not literal) codetta. e second part,
beginning with the same motive as the rst,
introduces the previously discussed vamp
section.
Why is this this sonata also referred to as
P4:26 ( P stands for Parma) and when could
it have been composed? From 1752 to 1757
copies of hundreds of Scarlatti sonatas were
made and assembled in the two manuscripts
we now call Parma and Venice from the
names of the cities where the libraries who
own these precious collections are located.
anks to the castrato singer Farinelli, who
inherited these collections from Maria
BÆrbara, and brought them to Italy, we have
15 Parma books containing 463 sonatas
and 13 Venezia books comprising a further
374 sonatas. ere are also 30 Essercizi
(published in 1738-9) and miscellaneous
sonatas not appearing in either Parma or
Venezia collection.
For my recordings of Scarlatti s complete
keyboard sonatas, I have used catalogue
numbers consisting of the city or edition
reference plus letters and numbers, as well
as the K (Kirkpatrick) number. Parma 4:26
(K216) therefore means that this sonata is
number 26 of the fourth book of the Parma
collection. When sonatas also appear in other
editions or manuscripts, I have given priority
to the Parma collection, both in the order
and arrangement of the catalogue, since this
appears to be the most authentic source.
is fourth Parma volume was compiled by
a copyist (no autographs of the sonatas have
ever been found) in 1752. While it is certain
that none of the works in this book date from
later than 1752, there is no way to tell which
year they were composed. All attempts at
chronological cataloguing must therefore be
considered conjectural.
Having recently set down the nal volume
in my 35-disc recording of Scarlatti s complete
sonatas, I can attest that there is still much
waiting to be discovered in this extraordinary
music. Once you have heard most or all of
them, your view of Scarlatti is certain to
change forever. IP
Carlo Grante’s Dominico Scarlatti:
Complete Keyboard Sonatas – Volume VI
is now available from Music & Arts (CD-
1299 – 7 CDs).
carlogrante.com/a-scarlatti-odyssey
www.international-piano.com
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 PRESENTS

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 SHEET MUSIC

Alan Bullard

Preludes
BY ALAN BULLARD

A few years ago, I started composing

some piano preludes in spare moments
between writing other things, partly to play
myself, but also for others. ey grew into a
set of 12, one in each major key hardly an
original concept, but one which gave me an
opportunity to think hard about variety within
my self-imposed limit of only two pages per
piece! is rst set was published in 2017. I
followed it up with a second set containing
one prelude in each of the minor keys, which
was published in February 2020.
In both sets, if played complete, I
recommend repeating the rst prelude to
make a nal 13th prelude hence the title
Twelve or irteen Preludes.
I ve always liked some kind of limitation
in my work, whether it be the necessity for
sticking to a ve- nger position in a very
easy piano piece, the demands of a certain
key or mode, a speci c motif or shape, or the Colne Edition Concert Series
Colne Edition Concert Series

expectations and skills of a particular group

of performers, real or imagined. It releases
the mind to concentrate on other parameters Alan Bullard Alan Bullard

of musical invention. In these pieces, V

7ZHOYHRU7KLUWHHQ3UHOXGH Twelve or Thirteen Preludes
variety of style and texture were important IRU for
3LDQRVROR Piano solo
considerations, while aiming to keep sight
6HW2QH Set Two
of my own musical voice. Some movements Minor Keys

lean towards the Romantic, neoclassical or

minimalist. I was surprised how the keys each Alan Bullard (b 1974)
COLNE EDITION CE54 COLNE EDITION CE55

suggested di erent moods. In the rst set, for
example, there is a lively D major, a simple and
repetitive F-sharp major, a quixotic F major, and
a mysteriously oating B major. e second set
includes a quirky B minor, a dramatic C minor,
and a romantic E minor, while the busy E- at
minor prelude alternates black and white notes
to provide a range of sonorities and colours.
e movements printed here are the 12th
and 13th prelude from the new Second Set.
Prelude No 12 is in a poignantly heartfelt
G-sharp minor, dedicated to the memory of
Kieran Sampson a friend, occasional pupil,
Inset: Maldon Festival founder Kieran Sampson
keen amateur musician, and the behind-the-
scenes driving force of the Maldon Festival.
As I was writing this prelude I heard of his
untimely death, and the music expresses both
sorrow and anger at a young life suddenly
taken away. By contrast, the set begins and
ends with a lively A minor prelude, exploring
the whole range of the piano.
It s been a real joy to focus on a wide variety
of textures and moods in writing these short
pieces. I hope you enjoy them too! IP
Allan Bullard’s two sets of Preludes are
published by Colne Edition and are available
from Spartan Press. spartanpress.co.uk
Alan Bullard is a composer of music for
a wide range of instruments and voices.
His works have been performed by many
professional ensembles as well as by amateur
players and singers worldwide.
alanbullard.co.uk

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 49

50
!
!

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© Alan Bullard 2020 Colne Edition, sole selling agents: Spartan Press Music Publishers Limited
 -

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www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 51

 0

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© Alan Bullard 2020 Colne Edition, sole selling agents: Spartan Press Music Publishers Limited
 .

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www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 53

 COMPETITION FOCUS

Right intentions, wrong results

The newly relaunched Long Thibaud Crespin Competition seemed to be getting everything
ıŒº¢łæœŁæœıæŒŁıæ$æCharlotte Gardner was in Paris to
witness the carnage

I
nternational music competitions always
carry a risk for those that do the rounds
(including journalists like me), because
for every competition that brings exciting
emerging talent to your attention, there
will be three that feel like a week of your life
you will never get back. And for every set of
understandable rankings, there will be another
that seems inexplicable. Some competitions
do, nevertheless, feel more dependable than
others, and certainly the newly relaunched
Long ibaud Crespin Competition in Paris
seemed to be falling into that bracket before
I went along to the Piano nals in November
last year.
A reminder: the Long ibaud Crespin
Competition is Frances major international
music competition, rotating annually
between Piano, Violin and Voice. In 2016 it
was mothballed following a period of steady
decline, but in 2018 was relaunched to great
fanfare under new management with big-
name performers and artistic directors at the
helm: Renaud Capu on for its inaugural 2018
Violin Competition; Bertrand Chamayou for
2019 Piano; and the newly appointed general
director of La Scala, Dominique Meyer, for
2020 Voice. Adding to the competitions new-
found clout, the First Prize now includes a
debut album on Warner Classics.
e formula is, in fact, the same as that of
the Leeds International Piano Competition,
which also relaunched with a new team in
2018 and also o ers a Warner Classics debut
for the winner. e parallels between the two
continue: the juries for both the Leeds event
and the LTC 2018 competition included a
wider range of experience than simply players
of the instrument in focus. So, Leeds jury
included violinist Henning Kraggerud and
Southbank Centre director of music Gillian
Moore. Meanwhile, the LTC Violin featured
conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier and Verbier
Festival founder and former DG executive
Martin Engstroem. Crucially in both cases,
the eventual winners pianist Eric Lu and
violinist Diana Tishchenko felt like the
right choices, and have subsequently been
embraced by promoters, audiences and
Warner alike.
Chamayous LTC Piano 2019 had all the
right ingredients on paper. Not only was
Warner Classics back on board, but this
time they were free to choose whichever

Keinji Miura gives his prizewinning performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2

MASHA MOSCONI

54 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com

 COMPETITION FOCUS

MASHA MOSCONI
nalist they wanted. e leading artist
management agency HarrisonParrott were
now in the mix too, o ering representation
to a nalist of their choice. A genuinely
interesting repertoire list added to the
appeal: French music celebrated not just
via familiar pieces of Ravel and Debussy,
but through the likes of Chabrier, Dukas, de
SØverac, Messiaen, Dutilleux and Boulez.
ere was also a competition commission:
Michael Jarrell s Étude No 2 ( RØminiscenses ),
which was both fascinating, beautiful and
exceptionally di cult. A concerto round also
ventured beyond the usual suspects, giving us
Rachmaninov No 1, Bart k No 3, Saint-Saºns
No 5 ( Egyptian ), Beethoven No 1, Mozart No
24 and Chopin No 2.
Chamayou opted for a pianists-only jury
chaired by Martha Argerich, with Yulianna
Avdeeva, Kirill Gerstein, Marc-AndrØ Hamelin,
Marie-JosŁphe Jude, Jean-Bernard Pommier,
Anne Que Ølec and Xu Zhong. A broad-based
experience of the music industry may have
been missing from this list, but it was at least
a jury more rooted in the concert hall than in
the corridors of conservatoires.
e nalists were 30-year-old ClØment Spark and personality: Jean-Baptiste Doulcet was expected to win but only came fourth
Lefebvre and 26-year-old Jean-Baptiste
Doulcet from France; Keigo Mukawa and
Keinji Miura, both 26, from Japan; 25-year- to the playing, though Lefebvre did managed crescendoed when Mukawas second prize
old Zhora Sargsyan from Armenia; and to bring some genuine poetry to his recital of was announced. It grew even more voluble as
Alexandra Stychkina, aged a very youthful Ravel, Rameau and Franck, albeit extracting Miura was crowned victor, but still had room
15, from Russia. e rst thing to say is that only the smallest of sounds from the piano. to intensify as he then proceeded to pick up
while these were six very di erent pianists, In retrospect, Keinji Miuras performance both the Warner and HarrisonParrott prizes.
no one emerged as an obvious One to Watch also warrants mention for reasons that will ere was vindicated applause as Doulcet
beyond the competition. I should also add become apparent below: recital performances took the Audience Prize, but the commotion
that journalists, promoters and musicians of Mozart s Sonata No 9, Ravel s Valses nobles in the hall was of such ferocity it barely
alike were unusually in agreement over who et sentimentales and Liszt s Dante Sonata registered that the prize for best interpretation
was likely to clinch First Prize: slightly out in which, while mostly technically secure, never of the commission was not awarded, Michael
front was Doulcet, who in the recital round came to life. Chopins Piano Concerto No 2 Jarrell having apparently declared that none of
gave us a con dent, multicoloured Debussy was well played but its emotion sounded more the nalists had adequately realised his score.
Estampes with nice rhythmic elasticity and rehearsed than authentic. It was a deeply uncomfortable experience
some genuine connection with the musics Certainly, nobody expected Miura to pick up to watch the young artists standing onstage
emotional world. He followed this with Bach First Prize, nor for Doulcet to be placed a mere throughout this, and all six deserve credit for
and Brahms which o ered contrasting and fourth and Mukawa second (with sixth and the way they maintained an outward calm.
equally convincing sound worlds, along fth respectively for Lefebvre and Stychkina, is was an extraordinary evening for all
with the only interpretation of the Jarrell and Sargsyan receiving third). Long- ibaud, the wrong reasons. It was certainly not the
commission which hung su ciently together. where half-heartedness is rewarded declared reception the newly relaunched LTC Piano
While his Bart k concerto wasn t perfect, it Frances leading daily Le Figaro two days later. had hoped for, and the numerous questions
had spark and personality. Weak in Mozart and Ravel, monochrome in left in its wake are so obvious that they don t
Not far behind Doulcet was Mukawa, Liszt, conventional and academic in Chopin. need spelling out. However, the competition
whose recital featured a beautifully shaped Perhaps the biggest shock of the night, has learned lessons before in order to rise
Bach Partita No 2, and a Jarrell which, though though, was the whole-hearted way in which gloriously from the ashes, so I see no reason
not always architecturally convincing, was the public expressed what they thought of the why it shouldn t do so again. In the meantime,
stronger than most. For his concerto, Saint- judges decisions: upon the announcement of LTC Piano 2019 will be a pertinent reminder
Saºns Egyptian had some air. From the other Doulcet s fourth place, the large audience in that no jury is infallible and that even the
four nalists, there was a narrower range of the Salle Cortot erupted into gasps followed most meticulously planned contest doesn t
colours and a much more academic avour by loud and sustained booing. is booing necessarily produce the rightful victor. IP

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 55

 FESTIVAL FOCUS

Sonatas on the ski slopes

What made Daniel Barenboim haul his piano to a remote mountain village in the depths of
winter? Simon Mundy reports from Andermatt Winter Festival, held at a new concert hall high
in the Swiss Alps

B
y the time you reach Andermatt from
Zurich you know the Swiss railway
system very well. A few express
trains take you as far as the nearby village
of G schenen in under two hours, but many
rail journeys require two or three changes
with a journey time up to four hours. You
pass through a series of industrial suburbs
until, after Erstfeld, it is clear the mountains
are getting higher and the line no longer has
an easy route to follow as it heads into the
heart of the Swiss Alps. e valleys narrow
and the towns become fewer, with less of
the brutal architecture of the last century. In
mid-January the snowline was shifting around
the thousand metre mark. At each change of
station more people carrying skis cluttered
the carriages. At G schenen, the train to
Milan is no longer t for the climb and you
change for the 10-minute hoist onto the slow
little wagons of the Matterhorn-Gotthard line,
taking on gradients that are better suited to
a cable car before they emerge from tunnels
alongside an ice- lled Alpine stream.
Andermatt is something of a shock.
Somewhere behind the small, windswept
station there is a traditional Swiss village with
sloping chalet roofs and curly Gothic shop signs;
on the other side, beyond icy car parks, is the
new face of this region: the valley is dominated
by a clump of modern apartment buildings and
a wood-faced square block which is a Radisson
hotel. is once sleepy backwater is developing
rapidly into a haven for ski enthusiasts,
mountaineers and trekkers; but along with
the resorts o ering winter sports facilities,
some heavy-duty cultural infrastructure is also
part of the investment. Underground, with
balcony-level glass that looks only at the wheels
of passing cars and the rst- oor windows of
guests changing out of their sporting gear, is the
new, state-of-the-art Andermatt Concert Hall.
Until 10 years ago, the development site
was a grim army base guarding the bunkers
burrowed out of the mountains around the St
Gotthard pass. ere are still soldiers around
but it is said the bunkers now contain the
huge computer servers of the Swiss banks,
generating enough heat to power the resort
that a piano-loving Egyptian multi-millionaire
has poured his money into. All of which makes
the concert hall both incongruous and rather
wonderful in its eccentricity.
And there was Daniel Barenboim playing
Beethoven sonatas, having had his own piano
lugged, Fitzcarraldo-like, from Berlin. ese
days he is as much an educator as interpreter.
His programme of four sonatas (Nos 15, 3,
24 and 30), was a chronological guided tour
but in each he had one thing he wanted us to
realise: that Beethovens slow movements were
revolutionary; that Beethoven was the rst
composer to bring the intensity to the piano
that Handel and Mozart had brought to their
most beautiful arias. Barenboim did not skittle
through the outer, faster, movements but

56 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com


there was a playfulness to them, and they were
as often rattled through with a grin as with
any show of virtuosity.
In Op 109 in E major, the Adagio section
of the rst movement and the Andante
cantabile of the third movement variations
were spellbinding; Barenboim achieving
that extraordinary feat of making time stand
still without losing the momentum of the
music. For the 600 people in the subterranean
hall, the recital had been built brilliantly,
culminating in a reading of true greatness
before he let us out into the frozen night with
some generous but irrelevant encores.
e festival and the halls general season
are programmed by a young British team, led
by Maximilian Fane, which also runs the New
Generation Opera Festival and workshops at
the Palazzo Corsini in Florence. Over the season
they have put together a series of recitals
featuring young soloists in three venues in
Andermatt, meaning that the festival is just one
www.international-piano.com
of the highpoints of the resorts musical o ering.
Having Barenboim playing in such intimate
surroundings was something of a coup but
there was a return to more normal and sadly
less illustrious fare during the following days.
Inviting conductor Jonathan Brett to
revive his English Classical Players after a
decade to be the accompanying orchestra
was a curatorial mistake. Even with many
distinguished and experienced musicians in
its ranks, the orchestra found it hard to form
a uni ed ensemble, relying on the leader and
timpanist rather than the conductor to keep
things together. It would have taken a more
imaginative pianist than Yoon-Kee Kim to rise
above the fray in Beethovens Piano Concerto
No 3. Her performance was regulation and
professorial; but we had been shown how the
music should be revealed, not only two nights
earlier by Barenboim but also that Friday
lunchtime by the Russian pairing of violinist
Nikita Boriso-Glebsky and pianist Georgy
FESTIVAL FOCUS
ALL IMAGES: VALENTIN LUTHIGER
Spellbinding: Daniel Barenboim (top) performs
Beethoven in Andermatt Concert Hall (above)
Tchaidze. Boriso-Glebsky is an exceptional
player with immaculate intonation but the
accompanying Tchaidze was a real discovery
for me. eir ensemble was everything the
orchestras was not: crisp, attentive and
perfectly together, while Tchaidzes steel
ngers made their performance of Beethovens
Sonata in A major Op 47 truly monumental.
If Andermatts Maecenas, Samih Sawiris,
sustains his interest and continues to support
the music signi cantly, the festival could in time
become an attractive adjunct to the January
shenanigans at Davos, over the mountains. It
will need a better prepared resident chamber
orchestra and higher calibre conductors but, for
a rst event, this was a worthwhile experiment
with unusual and rewarding results. IP
andermattmusic.com
International Piano May/June 2020 57
 REVIEWS • CONCERTS
UK
LONDON
Wigmore Hall
Beatrice Rana 7 February
Richard Goode 9 February
Nicolas Namoradze 16 February
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Alexei Volodin 26 February
I m not often lost for words, but Nicolas
Namoradze s recital almost defeated me. I
wasn t expecting anything amazing: hed won
the Honens Competition in 2018 and this gig
was his reward, but winning a comp is no
guarantee of greatness. Yet from the opening
phrase of Scriabins Black Mass Sonata he
had me hooked: the notes had a honeyed
grace, and the rest of the work unfolded in
an opalescent glow, every bar touched with
beauty. I ve never heard this puzzling work
make such persuasive sense.
Namoradze then segued into Bach, the
Ninth Sinfonia followed by the Sixth Partita
whose Toccata led majestically on to six
lovingly characterised movements; the
closing Gigue, which turns itself upside
down and inside out, came with an exultant
58 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
craziness which was never less than
technically immaculate.
e programme for the second half didn t
sound auspicious: York Bowens Twelve
Studies Op 46, followed by six Etudes by a
certain Mr Namoradze. Bowen is now all but
forgotten, but his studies, written in 1919,
are a fascinating blend of Romanticism and
modernist experimentation. In this player s
hands they were riveting, each one brought
out like a rabbit from a conjuror s hat and
allowed to run (very fast) wherever it liked.
And if the virtuosity was dazzling,
Namoradzes own studies, which seemed like a
continuation of Bowens, were doubly so. Finally
came ve 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 astonish us again. Come
back soon and astonish us some more.
Meanwhile, something seems to have
got into Beatrice Rana. e Bach 48 with
which she announced her presence to
the world was wonderfully nuanced, and
her subsequent performances have been
good, but her latest recital was a pain. No
question about the dexterity with which she
despatched a super-swift Italian Concerto,
but her unrelenting force and volume in
Dazzling virtuosity: Nicolas Namoradze
NATHAN ELSON
Schumanns F minor Sonata, Albeniz s Iberia
Book III and Stravinsky s Petrushka verged on
the psychopathic. Richard Goode s recital on
the same piano two days later was balm to
the ears: Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Debussy,
all awlessly idiomatic and all a delight. is
was the gold standard. Rana should have been
there she might have learned a thing or two.
Alexei Volodin is one of the most
unassuming of pianists. He nips on, does his
stu without any visible sign of e ort, and
nally, with a couple of a able nods, nips o
again. And when that stu is as toweringly
di cult as his programme for the QEH,
it becomes astonishing. His all-Russian
programme began with eight Fairy Tales by
Nikolai Medtner, and one couldn t wish for a
more convincing argument for this glorious
musics inclusion in the standard repertoire.
But Medtner (1879-1951) was simply born
too late, and was eclipsed by the modernists.
en came Proko ev s ird Sonata: not
to my taste with its amalgam of pugilism
and twinkle-toed demureness, but here
immaculately delivered. Finally, he played
Rachmaninov s First Sonata, an undervalued
masterpiece whose splendours Volodin
honoured to thrilling e ect. IP
MICHAEL CHURCH
 “ I TA LY ’ S N E W E S T M U S I C A L F I X T U R E …
I T W I L L B E H A R D F O R O T H E R S T O M AT C H
I T S B R O A D S C O P E A N D C I N E M AT I C C H A R M . ”

“With the foundation of its Mascarade Opera Studio, which offers a year
of intensive training for young opera singers on the cusp of a professional
career, NGF is bound to become an important platform, showcasing the best
in singing talent from all over the world. Th[eir 2019 production of Mozart’s Le
nozze di ] Figaro was full of the promise of great things to come.”
++++
›

› ›

T I C K E T S N O W AVA I L A B L E AT W W W. N E W G E N E R AT I O N F E S T I VA L . O R G
 REVIEWS • COMPOSER FOCUS
Voice of silence
Misunderstood and neglected in his lifetime, the solitary Catalan composer Federico Mompou
$æŁæŒºæŁØıºŁøŁæłıŁMichael Johnson reports
T he quiet, calming strains of the late
Catalonian composer Frederico Mompou
seemed so nebulous that he was not taken
seriously outside of Spain during his lifetime.
ere is no discourse, no argument, no
TULLY POTTER COLLECTION
60 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
development in this music, says Adolf Pla, a
Spanish pianist and friend of the family. But
the international public is now beginning
to understand his profound meaning and
accept him.
Pla has a point. Recently, there are signs of
a global Mompou revival as pianists discover
him and master his nely balanced harmonies.
Recital programmes and several new albums
attest to his broadening appeal. Mompou,
who died in 1987 at the age of 94, would be
surprised and probably pleased to receive
this recognition.
e attraction of Mompous music is in its
atmosphere and moods, not in Bach-like rigour
or Beethovenian structures. His compositions
rarely last more than three minutes, aiming to
strip out super uous notation and leave only
the essentials. His music has been compared
favourably to the works of Anton Webern and
Alban Berg but with tonality.
Mompous harmony needs no more than
an almost-nothing, a semitone, an aberrant
note, and the almost-perfect chord to become
imperfect He never completely severs his
original link to sonorous voluptuousness ,
writes the French musicologist Vladimir
JankØlØvitch in his notes accompanying the
2009 release of Mompou performing his own
music: Mompou: e Complete Piano Works
(Brilliant Classics 6515).
Arcadi Volodos, the Russian virtuoso now
living in Spain, helped trigger the revival a
few years ago with his recitals and album
Volodos plays Mompou (Sony 88765433262).
He reportedly had to cajole Sony Classics into
backing the project, initially dismissed as bad
business . Planning an appearance at Viennas
Musikverein, Volodos was even urged to ditch
Mompou from his proposed programme. e
Viennese advised him: Give them Schubert!
Volodos insisted on his Catalonian discovery
and has never looked back.
Volodos delicate interpretations scored
a surprise hit for Sony, prompting the label
to admit they had underestimated the
Catalan master. e album sold well and
inspired many international players including
Daniil Trifonov, Stephen Hough, Benjamin
Grosvenor, Guillaume Coppola, Judith JÆuregui
and Ernest So, to present their own selections
Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
 COMPOSER FOCUS • REVIEWS

MARCO BORGGREVE
from Mompous voluminous output. His
miniatures have even started turning up on
Yuja Wang s latest programmes.
Another notable Mompou interpreter is the
English pianist Imogen Cooper, who brings
an eerie lyricism and profound introspection
to Cancion y danzas (Songs and Dances) Nos
1 and 6 on her 2019 album Iberia y Francia
(CHAN20119). Meanwhile, Andrew Tysons
latest release on the Alpha label presented an
interesting selection from Mompous Paisajes
(Landscapes) series (ALPHA546).
More recently still, the promising young
Catalonian pianist Maria Canyigueral
has combined music by Mompou with
eight Mompou-inspired miniatures she
commissioned from European composers.
Her album Avant-guarding Mompou was
launched last month on the Audite label
(AUDITE20044). Canyigueral, who is now
London-based following her Royal Academy
studies, likens Mompous spare compositions
to a winter tree raw and pure , full of vitality
but not ornamented with leaves. I connect
with them emotionally, she says. Mompou Arcadi Volodos: ‘Mompou is not trying to be heard, but rather to be united with the
evokes beauty, good intentions, hope, joy, listener in musical silence’
Mediterranean spirit, sincerity and sensitivity.
French pianist Guillaume Coppola is the diaphanous colours of Debussy, or the play

M ompou developed his style partly as a

result of childhood disorders that his
biographer Pla believes might be diagnosed
today as Aspergers syndrome. All his life he
was uncommunicative and somewhat solitary.
Mompou himself liked to say, I am a man of
few words and a musician of few notes . Son
of a French mother and Spanish father, he
demonstrated enough talent to be accepted
at the Paris Conservatoire when Gabriel FaurØ
was at the helm. He ended up spending 20 years
in Paris mixing with leading music personalities
but never quite emerging on his own.
Why this late blooming? Is it perhaps
understandable, considering that Mompou
himself described his music as a weak
heartbeat ? Pla believes it was ahead of its
time: appreciating it requires an attitude of
contemplation and meditation .
Ernest So has re ected on Mompous
rebirth. I think seasoned listeners and
pianists have overdosed on Liszt, Chopin
and Rachmaninov, but are now seeking out
di erent spiritual and cathartic experiences,
he explains. I, for one, nd performing
Mompou a distinctly di erent experience from
playing anything else. An adoptive Catalonian,
So says he likes to pause zen-like at the piano
and imagine the Catalan countryside before I
let out the rst chords .
another fan, whose 2019 album Musiques de
Silence (Eloquence E1857) places Mompous
music in a wider historical context. He
interweaves Mompou miniatures with pieces
by Chopin, Debussy, Satie, Granados, Scriabin,
Ravel, Dutilleux and Takemitsu. Coppolas
dogged research reveals echoes of these
composers hidden away in many of Mompous
works. Studying urtext and autograph scores
wherever possible, Coppola analysed the
pieces measure by measure, hearing sonorities
and noting shared in uences. He focused
on the 28 miniatures called Mœsica callada
( Voice of Silence ), identifying resonances
as well as free associations. For example, a
Scriabin prelude comes before a Mompou
gem marked Lento, plaintif , while a Satie
Gnossienne precedes Secreto from Mompous
1912 collection Impresiones intimas.
About half of Coppolas selections are taken
from Mœsica callada, including the albums title.
Volodos has called this oeuvre, which Mompou
composed near the end of his days, without
a doubt the summit of his achievement, the
music he spent all his life moving toward .
As Coppola devoted more time to his
research, more subtle convergences occurred
to me, he writes in his booklet notes. e
post-Romantic accents appear in some pieces,
or clusters of resonant chords la Dutilleux, or
of light of Ravel. Out of them comes a warm
feeling of peace.
Coppola has performed Mœsica callada in
recitals around France, barely stopping to pause
between pieces. e public hears this music as
a single work, he explains, and seems to love
the ow. e audience is asked to withhold
applause so as not to disturb the quiet. Even
the pianist needs to achieve inner peace before
touching the keyboard. I breathe deeply and
slowly, I push the diaphragm down, like a
singer, says Coppola. I want physical relaxation
so as to achieve supple movements. I put myself
in a sort of bubble of silence and serenity.
Volodos believes he has divined the power
of Mompous style: I would say he is not
trying to be heard but rather is attempting
to be united with the listener in musical
silence e listener can feel the solitude
acutely not as a void but as a source of
plentiful spiritual tension. IP
Mompou: e
Complete Piano
Works (Brilliant
Classics 6515)
brilliantclassics.com

www.international-piano.com International Piano May/June 2020 61

 REVIEWS • LABEL FOCUS
Re ned tastes
Colin Clarke explores the latest piano recordings from a French label that celebrates
exceptional artists and unusual repertoire
T he splendidly named French recording
label Le Palais des DØgustateurs boasts a
varied catalogue containing numerous jewels.
Recent piano releases include the renowned
Robert Levin in Bachs six Partitas, as chamber
partner with Hilary Hahn and Alain Meunier
in piano trios by Mozart ( featuring Levins
completion of the D minor Triosatz K442) plus
Boris Berman in Brahms Klavierstücke, Ya-Fei
Chang in Liszt and Chopin, and Dominique
Merlet in Book 1 of Bachs Well-Tempered
Clavier. Although the label is based in Ucel,
located in the heart of the ArdŁche region,
many of the recordings hail from the wine-
growing village of Vosne-RomanØe near Dijon.
( e label enjoys links with a number of
wine producers).
Le Palais founder ric Rouyer has a clear
and exciting vision: I consider it to be a
mission to celebrate exceptional artists who
are unconcerned with success, he explains,
choosing to work with people who live in
the dignity and loyalty of their values not
merely artistic, but human . is is in contrast
to (tactfully unnamed) record companies
who have abandoned their moral obligation
to music . Rouyer is adamant that he will
celebrate these cultural heroes neglected by
our super cial era . He works closely with
the 92-year-old Professor Pierre Magnard, a
philosopher of the cultural heritage of France,
who keeps a vigil over ethics and the quest
for meaning .
Active since 2015, the label s already
substantial catalogue reveals a similar disdain
for popularism when it comes to repertoire:
from motets by Jacob Handl (Ensemble
Musica Nova) to Magnard and Franck violin
sonatas (Poulet/Jean-Claude van den Eynden)
and a disc of FaurØ/Schmitt/Koechlin for cello
and piano. e sound of Meunier s cello on
the latter is wonderful, partnered skilfully by
pianist Anne Le Bozec.
Pianists feature strongly in both solo and
chamber repertoire. Taiwanese pianist Ya-Fei
Chuang brings uency and legerdemain to
Liszt s B minor Sonata and Chopins Préludes,
while Dominique Merlet s Bach exhibits
62 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
Visionary: Éric Rouyer
fabulous cleanliness of attack and texture.
Rouyer says he felt a moral obligation to
record Merlet s Well-Tempered Clavier, which
he believes is a de nitive version . Merlet s
grasp of Bachs polyphony is indeed awe-
CLIVE BARDA
Prizewinning pianist and musicologist
Robert Levin
inspiring, and an aura of transcendent calm
hangs over his entire performance.
Boris Bermans 2019 Brahms album follows
a previous Debussy twofer for Le Palais. Best
known for his many Chandos releases, Berman
o ers Brahms of maximal elusiveness: there
is mastery to his subtle, exquisitely shaded
readings of the Klavierstücke, from Op 76
through to Op 119. Head of keyboard at Yale,
Russian-born Berman shows a very di erent
side than in his Proko ev albums for Chandos.
e epitome of the new Brahms set is a
deliciously otherworldly Intermezzo in E- at
minor Op 118/6.
Perhaps the greatest coup, however, has
been securing the services of Levin, whose
Partitas won the Grand Prix International du
Disque de lAcadØmie Charles Cros: is was
a particularly moving moment, says Rouyer.
Indeed, it is a remarkable recording, both
musically and musicologically: early editions
and ornamentation have been carefully
considered. ere are alternative versions
presented for movements of the ird Partita
(a di erent reading of a line in the Gigue) and
in the Sixth (di erent rhythms for the Tempo
di Gavotta and the Gigue).
Equally compelling are Levins completions
of Mozart chamber works: the Triosatz K442
(Levin/Hahn/Meunier, coupled with the
Trio K496) and, with violinist GŒrard Poulet,
an album of un nished duo works for violin
and piano. e completions are magni cent,
especially compared with others such as K442
by AbbØ Maximilian Stadler (1748-1833).
Levins versions ring perfectly true.
All the piano recordings are made on a
superb Steinway acquired by technician
Bruno PrØvalet and captured by resident
sound engineer Alain Gandol . Upcoming
projects con rmed by Rouyer include AlbØric
Magnard s monumental string quartet
performed by the BØla String Quartet (a major
work that has been much too neglected )
and Ravel s complete piano works with
Ya-Fei Chuang. IP
lepalaisdesdegustateurs.com
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 REVIEWS • CDs
Critic’s choice
%UDKPV
4 Ballades Op 10; Capriccios and
Intermezzos Op 76 & 117
)DELDQ0»OOHU (pf)
Berlin Classics 030115SBC
is new album from German pianist Fabian
M ller runs the gamut from head-spinning
virtuosity to the interior, bittersweet world
of Brahms music memorably described by
the essayist William Ritter as being like the
golden lustre of parks in autumn and the black
and white of winter walks.
e youthful M ller s performances are
deeply considered and entirely personal. As
he himself puts it, I wanted to wait until I
was 50 to record these works, but I couldn t
wait that long . ere is a special inwardness
to his way with the grisly Edward Ballade,
as well as a strong sense of storytelling,
whether in the quixotic ght of No 3 or in the
Schumannesque dreams of No 4.
From Op 10 to Op 117 is not such a wide
step, revealing M ller s sensitivity to Brahms
MARCO BORGGREVE
64 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
BY BRYCE MORRISON
at his most intimate and con ding. He is, piano concertos. It is complemented by
however, less successful in Op 76, where outstanding notes which tell us that the
an element of self-consciousness counters contribution made by Mozart to human joy
his strong poetic instinct. He can be heavy-is inestimably large .
handed in the delectable B minor Capriccio e composer s rst o cial piano
when compared (cruelly) to Rubinstein or concerto, given with the original rather
Perahia, and is less haunting and grazioso than revised nale, provides ample
than Myra Hess in No 3. But he passes on theevidence of a young genius rather than
glory of the nal Capriccios soaring ecstasy a precocious talent. Bavouzet s agility
with empathy and engagement. If elsewhere, and charm are underlined in his own
the art of understatement that of a Kemp , cadenza for the nale, a brief but twinkling
Lupu or Perahia eludes him, it is a quality concoction full of volleys of repeated
that will surely come later. notes that would have startled but surely
delighted Mozart. No 6 is already an
advance in subtlety and sophistication on
No 5 with its elegantly tripping nale. But
it is with No 9 that you confront the rst of
the great concertos. Here, the soloist s early
entry and the sombre expressive beauty
of the central Andantino (a prophecy of
Beethovens C minor life ) are surprises
indeed, only to nd such sobriety banished
in a nale of irresistible joi de vivre.
Bavouzet s performances are given with
Mozart beaded bubbles winking at the brim
Piano Concertos Nos 5, 6, 8 & 9; Keats wonderfully apt metaphor and
Overtures: /D‹QWDJLDUGLQLHUD, ,OVRJQRGL he is ideally partnered by TakÆcs-Nagy.
6FLSLRQH, /XFLR6LOOD, ,OUHSDVWRUH, =DLGH e concertos are complemented by ve
-HDQ(›DP%DYRX]HW (pf) Manchester overtures, again showing that conductor
Camerata/Gabor Takács-Nagy and orchestra were born for Mozart.
Chandos CHAN20137 – 2 CDs Chandos sound and presentation are
superb. Even with competition from the
T his double album is the fth in Jean-
E am Bavouzet s ongoing cycle of Mozart
likes of Brendel and Perahia, this is an
enviable series.
ALBUM OF K irill Gerstein o ers a vigorous and
bracing reading of AdŁs Piano Concerto.
THE MONTH Premiered by Gerstein in 2018 after a
gestation period of six years, the piece has
been aptly described as utterly contemporary
yet simultaneously rich with reference to
tradition. An audacious challenge to both
pianist and listener, its originality lies in the
fact that while it is a proper piano concerto
(AdŁs) with a clearly de ned fast-slow-fast
format featuring cadenzas and familiar
virtuoso challenges (octaves, rapid repeated
notes, glissandi, etc), such features are
reworked into an entirely modern idiom.
e opening Allegramente gets o to a
Kirill Gerstein: Vigorous and bracing rhythmically disjunct start before easing into

.DONEUHQQHU
*UDQGHV´WXGHVGHVW\OHHWGH
SHUIHFWLRQQHPHQW Op 143; 9DULDWLRQV
EULOODQWHVVXUXQHPD]XUNDGH&KRSLQ
7\OHU+D\ (pf)
Piano Classics PCL10190
Following his recordings of Liszt and John
Ogdon, Tyler Hay tackles Kalkbrenner s 25
Grandes études Op 143, adding an outsize
twist on Chopin. is is a rst recording on a
modern instrument and Hay s performances
are richly inclusive. He can swashbuckle with
the best of them (witness his Allegro furioso
of No 5, which he sees as a storm at sea ) as
well as displaying huge capacity for grace and
empathy (heard in the hauntingly magical
textures of No 13).
Hay s enthusiasm for his project is
boundless, leading him to quote Chopins
assessment of Kalkbrenner the performer
Herz, Liszt and Hiller are all zeros next to
Kalkbrenner though the parallels he draws
with Chopins 24 Études beg some questions.
Blades of light alternate with studies that
remain studies, music that unlike Chopins
fails to cross the Rubicon from pragmatism
to poetry. Endings can be disappointingly
abrupt, as if Kalkbrenner was unable to nd
calmer waters. e overall mood is dark and
disquieting, qualities con rmed in the central
Andante gravemente the expressive and
elegiac kernel of the piece which recalls
not so distant memories of Bart ks First
Piano Concerto. e nale is alive with jagged
distortions of traditional dance rhythms, its
furious ending redolent of Proko ev s shock
tactics at the conclusion of his First Piano
Concerto. Yet, paradoxically, it is the strength
and originality of AdŁs voice that strikes
you at every turn. His Totentanz, composed
in memory of Lutos awski, is a savage and
eloquent reminder of death as the ultimate
leveller. ese are world premiere recordings,
superb in both sound and presentation.
www.international-piano.com
a convincing or illuminating conclusion. But
there is more than enough to prompt interest
(notably the Alkanesque oddity of No 9, which
alternates dreams with abrupt interruptions),
and Hay s performances are an awe-inspiring
tribute to what is clearly a special love.
)UDQFN
3U´OXGHV)XJXHV&KRUDOHV
1LNRODL/XJDQVN\ (pf)
Harmonia Mundi HMM 902642
For Tatiana Nikolayeva, Nikolai Lugansky
was the next one , an opinion born out on
many occasions including this new recording
devoted to CØsar Franck.
Although the Prélude, Choral et Fugue is
no longer a staple of the repertoire today s
artists are apt to shy away from Francks overt
emotionalism Lugansky reminds us of its
true stature. Arguably, his Russian roots make
him particularly responsive to the spiritual
turbulence at the heart of Francks genius.
ere is nothing of the studio about
Lugansky s seeming spontaneity and his total
immersion in Francks troubled soul. His
big hands bestride with ease the awkward
unpianistic demands at the start of the Prélude,
Aria et Final, and his response to Francks
$G§V
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra;
7RWHQWDQ]
.LULOO*HUVWHLQ(pf) Mark Stone (bar)
Christianne Stotijn (mez) Boston
Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès
Deutsche Grammophon DG 483 799
CDs • REVIEWS
hymnal piety puts a lie to the late James
Gibbs dismissal of the composers harmonic
progressions. roughout, Lugansky makes you
more than aware of the constant battle between
light and dark, the secular and the spiritual.
His own transcription of the organ Chorale
No 2 is a sombre and magisterial reworking of
the original. While no one has ever equalled
Cortots unique speaking and singing eloquence
in the two masterpieces, Lugansky s disc is
surely among the nest modern alternatives.
0RV]NRZVNL
Piano Works
(WVXNR+LURVH (pf)
Danacord DACOCD 866
For Paderewski, no less, after Chopin,
Moszkowski best understands how to write
for the piano, and his writing encompasses
the whole gamut of piano technique . Sadly
today, far from the Belle poque that enshrines
Moszkowskis charm, much of his music has
faded from the repertoire (though Etincelles,
beloved by all those for whom wit and sparkle
are top priorities, still appears as an encore).
is makes one all the more grateful for Etsuko
Hiroses album, a rich compensation for the sadly
discontinued Hyperion series by Seta Tanyel.
Following her magni cent album of
Lyapunov s Transcendental Etudes, Hirose
continues with playing of extraordinary grace
and uency (though she can also turn the
heat on, going out in a blaze of virtuoso glory
at the close of the Chanson bohŁme from
Carmen). As always, her impeccable technique
is subservient to musical ends. Etincelles may
lack the boggle factor of Horowitz or Volodos
but is a winning alternative to more obviously
dazzling versions. She brings liquid sonority
and beguiling poise to the arrangement of
O enbachs Barcarolle, while in Moszkowski s
slant on Tristan und Isolde ( for Earl Wild,
preferable to Liszt s famous setting) she revels
in a wide dynamic spectrum. e pearly gleam
of her sonority tells you she is incapable of
making an ugly sound. Finely recorded, this
disc is a winner. IP
International Piano May/June 2020 65
 REVIEWS • CDs
HISTORIC RECORDINGS
The Great Danish Pianist Victor Schiøler –
Vol 4
Works by Beethoven, Liszt, Gershwin,
Nielsen, Schubert, Palmgren, Chopin,
Schumann, Brahms
Victor Schiøler (pf) Emil Telmányi (vln)
Danish State Broadcasting Orchestra/
Carl von Garaguly; Tivoli Orchestra/
Thomas Jensen; Jazz Concert Orchestra/
Erik Tuxen; DSBO/Jensen
Danacord DACOCD 867-68 – 2 CDs
E vident from this retrospect of studio,
broadcast and live recordings, the
Danish pianist Victor Schiłler (1899-1967),
a schooled Leschetizky man who studied
with Friedman and Schnabel, was one of the
leading Nordic voices of his day. e on-the-
sleeve post-Lisztian clichØs and arch-romantic
climaxes of Palmgrens River Concerto
(Helsinki 1962) a Friedman favourite
Schiłler played with Wood at the 1925 Proms
are winning. Nielsens Violin Sonata Op 9
with Emil TelmÆnyi (the composer s son-in-
law), without being a primary source, also has
value (1954).
In Chopin (a driven A- at Polonaise and
symphonic ird Scherzo, 1942/50), Schiłler
is closer to Rubinstein than Horowitz, clarity
and heroic pulse at a premium. Like some
later Soviet readings, a curious Gershwin
Rhapsody in Blue (1941, pre-Earl Wild/Benny
Goodman) is largely a comment on how
Europeans used to un-bend jazz idioms.
Teasing out tone, nuance and declamation
colours his Magyar Liszt and Brahms
(1942/59).
A Beethoven Emperor with Carl von
Garaguly (1947) proves modernist in outlook.
Schubert s Wanderer Fantasy, from a 1966
television broadcast aired weeks before
Schiłler s death, enlightens. Seek out the
footage and you ll nd a jowelled, unfussy
player structuring the music to speak in its
own harmonic space and time. Classically
temperate posture, energy conserved,
66 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
ngers stroking the keys, his lightly oiled
octaves, cushioned chords, purling runs,
orchestration and registral changes
are kept to a minimum. An interesting
masterclass less sombre than Arrau,
more human than Richter.
Norma Fisher at the BBC – Vol 2
Works by Liszt, Schubert, Schumann,
Debussy and André Tchaikowsky
Norma Fisher (pf)
Sonetto Classics SONCLA 004 – 2 CDs
Norma Fisher was born in wartime
London to Russian-Polish parents.
Generous to a fault, she is revered by the
students she nurtures today at the Royal
College of Music. Her many broadcasts
from the 60s to the 90s shaped and
in uenced a generation.
Listening to this elegant collection
another life, another person , she calls
it enriches the human condition. Her
Liszt Mephisto Waltz, Venezia e Napoli,
the F-minor Transcendental Etude (1985)
is dumbfounding: a cocktail of jewelled
pianism and bared, burning imagination,
of agonisingly beautiful phrases breathing
and taking wing, of timbres and emotions,
weighted communications of the soul,
variegated through the registers. My whole
desire [as a young woman] was to be taken
over by transported by whatever I
played at s exactly the listener gets.
Schumanns Sonata in G minor (1984),
with the original nale, is proud, dynamic,
yearning, intimately fragile, structured,
intense a poet guiding us. ree
miraculously nuanced Debussy Études
descry a faded Gallic age. Analytically
focused, AndrØ Tchaikowsky s Inventions
Op 2 (a 1984 broadcast) are exactingly
detailed, glassy in attack, sparingly
pedalled, not a note without function or
personal investment. Reference playing.
Vintage studio production.
ATEŞ ORGA
SOLO REPERTOIRE
Bach
French Suite No 5; Partita No 2
Bartók
Out of Doors; Piano Suite Op 14
Julien Libeer (pf)
Harmonia Mundi HMU902651
A wonderful idea, imperfectly realised. e
challenge here is to illuminate Bach and
Bart k by throwing them into relief against
each other. e prerequisite is an interpreter
who plays both composers equally well. In
Libeer we have a rst-rate Bart k performer;
his Bach, while commendable, lags behind.
Comparing Libeer to Perahia (DG) in the
Bach French Suite reveals that even where
Libeer is impressive (cascading runs in the
Courante), listening to Perahia is like coming
out into the sun. Both are generous with
decorations, but Perahias are unforced.
Bart ks Out of Doors is superb, Libeer nding
real lyricism in this angular score.
e juxtaposition of the Second Partita with
Bart ks Suite reveals a similar dynamic.
Hommage à Liszt
Three Concert Studies S144; Two Concert
Studies S145; Grandes études de Paganini
S141; Réminiscences de Don Juan S418;
Études d’exécution transcendante S139
Amir Katz (pf)
Orfeo C990202 – 2 CDs
Given that Amir Katz has studied with
Fleisher and Perahia, the thoughtfulness of

this Liszt should come as no great surprise.
is is Liszt more in the manner of Brendel
than Czi ra.
But it takes a great musician to deliver this
strategy, given the virtuoso leanings of the
repertoire. Gnomenreigen is slow with some
sparkle, but miles away from Arraus glory. With
the Paganini Études, it is the second, with its
sparkly descents, that impresses. But the third
feels like its being played at rehearsal speed,
as do parts of Réminiscences de Don Juan. e
Transcendental Studies fare better, Mazeppa at
least somewhat invoking a wild horse ride, but
there is not enough here for a recommendation.
The Long Seventeenth Century: A
Cornucopia of Early Keyboard Music
Works by Picchi, Merula, Arauxo,
Weckmann, Macedo, Bruna, Gabrieli,
Couperin, Ferrabosco, Frescobaldi,
Trabaci, Radino, Philips, Locke, Tisdale,
6FKLOGW0X'DW)UREHUJHU
Chambonnières, de la Guerre, Tomkins,
Coprario, Farnaby, Schiedemann,
Kerll, Sweelinck, Cabanilles, Byrd, Bull,
Buxtehude, Praetorious, Kuhnau, Correa,
Pasquini, Roux, D’Anglebert and Storace
Daniel-Ben Pienaar (pf)
Avie AV2415 – 2 CDs
is fascinating exploration of keyboard works
from the 1600s is subdivided into four parts:
Intimation and Imitation , Dance , Variation
and Depiction and Evocation .
ere are discoveries in each section:
Weckmans chattering Canzon is a delight in the
rst, Pienaars articulation at speed a joy. e
move to dance seems, initially, clear, but dances
are not all happy: Tomkins A Sad Pavan for these
Distracted Times seems all too relevant today.
As to Variations, it is Buxtehudes extended
Variations on ‘La Capricciosa’ that emerges as
a true masterwork: Pienaar s virtuosity shines.
Finally, Depiction and Evocation, Le Roux s
La Favorite supremely enigmatic, its energy
prolonged by DAnglebert s dolorous Tombeau
de M. Charbonnieres. Superb.
www.international-piano.com
Farrenc
Etudes & Variations
Joanne Polk (pf)
Steinway & Sons 30133
e recent revival of interest in Louise
Farrencs music has unearthed a composer
of stature, her ird Symphony in particular
enjoying popularity. Here, Polk reveals some of
Farrencs superbly crafted piano music.
A charming Air Russe varié launches the
disc, while Farrencs ever-so-French way with
found material ( from Bellini s Norma and
Souvenir des Huguenots) is mirrored by Polks
legerdemain. Excerpts from the composer s
Etudes Op 26 explore a variety of characters
and styles, from breathlessly comedic to
quasi-Schubertian, mournful aria to fugue.
Polks dedication and pianistic command is
complete, the recording rst rank.
Chopin
Préludes Op 28
Brahms
Intermezzo Op 117/1
Schumann
Geistervariationen WoO 24
Eric Lu (piano)
Warner Classics 0190295292348
Eric Lu is an impressive pianist: he recently
presented a ne Beethoven Fourth in London
with the Lille Orchestra, while his Mozart
at last year s Proms revealed a freshness of
approach and delivery.
Lus rst studio album opens with an account
of Chopins Préludes that exudes this same sense
CDs • REVIEWS
of discovery. His emotional depth and dynamic
range are particularly striking, bringing light and
shade to everything he touches: the E minor
prelude is a mini-tone poem; the F-sharp minor,
Molto agitato, melts into something luminous.
Brahms beautiful Intermezzo leads naturally
to the Schumann (both in E- at). Lu has all the
Innigkeit required; it is Schumanns unexpected
harmonic twists, lit as if from within, that is the
albums summit. Truly magical.
Granados
Goyescas
Jean-Philippe Collard (pf)
La Dolce Vita LDV73
One could be forgiven for thinking this is
a two-disc set; in fact, its heft is due to the
inclusion of a substantial, lavish booklet.
Collard announces himself as heir to the
crown of Alicia de Larrocha, whose recordings of
Goyescas are the benchmarks for this repertoire.
Collard brings amboyance to the climax of Los
requiebros, his Coloquio en la reja is a shimmering
study in lustrous beauty and El fandango de
candil ickers in the imagined candlelight of
its title. e near-Impressionism of Quejas is
magni cent, as is the breadth of the ballad. A
phenomenal recording, strongly recommended.
Bach
Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080
Tatyana Nikolayeva (pf)
First Hand Records FHR 95
A titan of Bach on the piano, Nikolayevas
performances exude a granitic strength. Bachs
International Piano May/June 2020 67
 REVIEWS • CDs
linear workings, coupled with his ability to
project over large spans, are laid bare with
exquisite certainty.
Nikolayevas most famous (and most readily
available) BWV1080 is her 1992 Hyperion
recording. is live performance from
Helsinki s Sibelius Academy dates from even
nearer the end of her life April 1993 and
the wisdom of a lifetimes immersion in Bach
is evident everywhere. Contrapunctus III sums
up the clarity, imagination and mastery of
her voice-leading, while the nal, un nished
Contrapunctus XIV carries the weight of the
world. No completion, the music just trails o .
Hyperion o ers ner sound, but this version
is more poignant.
COLIN CLARKE
CHAMBER MUSIC
To the Spring
Grieg Violin Sonatas: No 1 in F major Op 8,
No 2 in G major Op 13, No 3 in C minor Op
45; Våren Op 33/2; Lyric Pieces Op 43/6,
‘To spring’
Tom Poster (pf) Elena Urioste (vln)
Orchid Classics ORC 100126
In a world which often seems fraught with
over-complication and disharmony, write the
artists, Grieg s music lled with childlike
wonder and clear mountain air transports
us to a simpler, kinder place. Neither the
pre-concerto First (1865) nor Second Sonatas
(1867), admired by Liszt, are as persuasively
con dent as the familiar ird. But structural
niceties and side-steps are for the nding (the
combination of slow movement and scherzo
in the First, for example), and both can claim
bright gallery nales. Hardanger ddles,
too, are in the ether, lending a quietly Nordic
nuance.
e bigger-boned C minor (1886-87, written
for Adolph Brodsky and recorded in 1928
by Kreisler and Rachmaninov) commands
any stage, a work of maturity and incisive
direction. Immersed spiritually and musically
68 May/June 2020 International Pianowww.international-piano.com
in the composer s world, Urioste and Poster
have the scale, gesture and intimacy of this
repertory in their system. Enduringly poetic is
the expressive intensity and timing they nd,
the slower paragraphs unfolding with aching
beauty. Similarly, their transcriptions of one
of Grieg s songs, Våren, and the sixth of his Op
45 Lyric Pieces nostalgically tender jewels
cloaked in dolcissimo tone and in nitely
responsive accompaniments. Sincere
performances, warmly engineered. Gorgeous.
Beethoven
Suites
Vanessa Benelli Mosell (pf) Julien
Martineau (mandolin)
Naïve V 7083
If you want Beethovens surviving output for
mandolin the Allegretto from the Seventh
Symphony for mandolin, piano and double
bass (sourced from Hans Sitt), that Saturday
Night Fever parody from the Fifth (Walter
Murphy s, for mandolin, piano, double bass
and drums, arranged by Bruno Fontaine),
a nosegay of Hummel and Kreisler, and a
commission from the young Frenchman
Corentin Apparailly (given the giddying task
of painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa , in
this case mixing the Immortal Beloved letters
with a dash of Satie and Rachmaninov)
then this is a must-have album. But it s
confused. Combining ampli ed mandolin
with a close-miked Steinway grand is
bizarre. Ensemble can be troubling, and
the claustrophobic acoustic is fatiguing.
While Martineau plucks away, Mosell takes
an uneasy back seat, repressing personality
and compromising touch. Never one for
self-e acement, perhaps she should listen to
how Denis Matsuev copes with balalaikist
Anastasiia Tiurina (y2u.be/wRd-vbYpLck).
And Martineau might usefully eavesdrop
on the likes of Ekaterina Skliar and Anna
Kislitsyna (y2u.be/bXgPLxLLfH0) phrasing
and balancing Beethoven through a prism of
mandolin and harpsichord.
Mozart
Sonatas for fortepiano and violin – Vol 2
Alexander Melnikov (fortepiano) Isabelle
Faust (vln)
Harmonia mundi HMM 902361
e second volume of Faust s Mozart cycle
with Alexander Melnikov exceeds the
expectations of the rst. Sonatas K301,
305, 376 and 378, all in major keys, span a
period from Mannheim and Salzburg to
the early Vienna days of spring 1781. Here
are fully edged duetti, neither instrument
subservient to the other, a glory of
imagination, invention and independence
blazing new trails. Faust and Melnikov
delight, dance and dream their way through
the pages, she urgently dynamic, her lines
cutting glassily through the texture, sparing
in vibrato, he more than once nding a re
and energy not so far removed from the
rougher-edged brilliance and temperament
of Haydn or Beethoven. His clarity of
articulation as he listens attentively to his
partner, sculpting and tensioning each
phrase with slight leanings on the beat, is a
superior experience. Recorded in Berlin on a
Stradivarius (the 1704 Sleeping Beauty ) and
a pedigree copy by Christoph Kern of a 1795
Anton Walter fortepiano, this is the kind of
playing that makes you feel good.
Rachmaninov
Trio élégiaques: No 1 in G minor Op posth,
No 2 in D minor Op 9; Vocalise Op 34/14
Hermitage Piano Trio
Reference Recordings RR-147SACD

As dark recordings go, this 2017 production is
dark. Ilya Kazantsev, pianist of the American-
based Hermitage Trio, understandably invokes
Dostoevsky s Brothers Karamazov: e richness
and depth of human soul ... from lightness to
darkness, from joy to sorrow, from pure happiness
to complete despair . Both of Rachmaninovs early
Trio élégiaques are here the G-minor (1892) and
D minor in memory of Tchaikovsky (1893 revised
1917), along with a 1928 arrangement of the
Vocalise by his friend Julius Conus.
Broader and longer than the Moscow
Rachmaninov Trio account on Hyperion (by
around 18 per cent overall), the Hermitage
have epic measure of the style. eir playing
is consummate, fearless in its bravura, deeply
impassioned and dazzlingly ighted (try the
Allegro scherzando variation of the D minor s
second movement). Eyes seeking within,
they mine the recesses of Rachmaninov s
fantasy, giving us lonely ruminations, nding
orthodox choirs and exploring shadowy
textures. e result is an emotional panorama
encompassing elds of gold, open skies,
confessions, funerals and judgement days.
Kazantsev plays a rich Hamburg Steinway
with a sonority that re ects the sombre mood.
ATEŞ ORGA
CONTEMPORARY/JAZZ
Sorabji
Sequentia Cyclica
Jonathan Powell (pf)
Piano Classics PCL10206 – 7 CDs
Born in the north-east London suburb
of Chingford, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
(1892-1988) was one of the most quixotic yet
visionary composers of the 20th century.
Sorabji was little performed in his own
lifetime, partly due to his own directive: he
was distressed by inadequate interpretations,
though his complex and often lengthy scores
place heavy demands on performers. He
˛¯l¸˚¸˛˛
eventually allowed his piano music to be
played by Yonty Solomon and John Ogdon.
www.international-piano.com
Comprising 27 variations on the Dies Irae
and Requiem Mass plainchants, and lasting
eight-and-a-half-hours, Sequentia Cyclica is
Sorabji s longest solo piano work. In the annals
of pianistic gigantism, it s exceeded only by
his unrecorded Symphonic Variations for Piano
and Orchestra, and works by Fred Rzewski and
Jacob Mashak.
Sorabji was inspired by Late Romantic
modernism, especially Busoni and the perfumed
exoticism of Szymanowski. He dedicated
Sequentia Cyclica to Busoni disciple Egon Petri.
e musics structures are Baroque, but its
tonality is both free and complex. Impressionistic
colour is especially apparent in such movements
as Hispanica (XV) with its ornate Latin rhythms,
and the delightful pastiche Quasi Debussy (XIX).
e score is overloaded with ornamentation
and calls for extreme virtuosity, yet in this
remarkable new recording by Jonathan
Powell, it seems to express a deep mysticism.
Its tempting to argue, given the composers
background, that Sorabji transferred something
of the meditative aesthetic of Indian ragas to
the Western classical piano.
Anyone who plays Sorabji has to be an
a cionado because of the challenges involved.
Powell certainly quali es for this description.
In addition to performances of Opus
Clavicembalisticum by comparison, at ve
hours, almost a repertoire work Powell has
given several public performances of Sequentia
Cyclica. He is a passionate, immensely able
advocate, and never allows Sorabji s gigantism
to tip over into excess or hysteria.
Having recently reviewed a Morton Feldman
collection featuring the 90-minute Triadic
Memories, and 70-minute For Bunita Marcus
(see IP April, page 77), it s interesting to
compare the e ect of these heavenly lengths.
Feldman generates a distinctive aesthetic
from his use of extended timeframes, but I m
not certain the same is true of Sorabji. Powell
has been rightly commended for his pacing
and control of dynamics, but it would be an
unusual listener who could relate that control
to the works totality.
Immense dedication: Jonathan Powell
CDs • REVIEWS
eres no doubt that Sorabji s music often
casts a hypnotic spell, and one has to admire
the immense dedication of Powell in bringing
this extraordinary work to the catalogue.
3KLOLS*ODVV0XVLFDO2'HULQJ
Glass ‘Façades’ from Glassworks (arr
Deutekom); String Quartet No 2
‘Company’ (arr Deutekom); Distant
Figure3LDQR(WXGH1RZ2'HULQJ[IURP
Passages (arr Deutekom); Les Enfants
Terribles: Suite (arr Deutekom); Piano
Etude No 20
Feico Deutekom (pf)
Orange Mountain Music 6052 CD
Released to mark the 83rd birthday of Philip
Glass, this new album from Feico Deutekom
o ers solo piano arrangements of Glasss
orchestral music, interspersed with the
composer s original piano works.
e Dutch pianist has collaborated with
Glass for some years, and here contributes
arrangements of Fa ades from Glassworks
(1982) and incidental music for a 1980 staging of
Becketts novella Company. O ering; comes from
pieces Glass composed with Ravi Shankar for the
1990 album Passages, and there are movements
from the 1996 dance-opera Les Enfants Terribles.
e longest original composition is the
passacaglia Distant Figure (2017). Two etudes,
Nos 16 and 20, are drawn from the composers
popular set of 20 Etudes (1994-2012).
Id agree with the common critical judgment
that Glass was at his best in the 1960s, when
he was a radical minimalist. is album
doesn t change my view. Deutekom comments
that one of Glasss fundamental contributions
is the application of non-linearity to Western
classical music ... constant repetition through
constant change . at principle may at one
time have provided the radical edge to his
music, but no longer. It s ba ing that anyone
could regard these pieces as anything other
than contemporary salon music banal and
sopori c. IP
ANDY HAMILTON
International Piano May/June 2020 69
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chopin - reklama 94x273 mm Piano


D ave Brubeck is one of very few jazz
musicians whose biography would excite
a major trade publisher. Surprising, then, that
this is his rst serious biography. Brubecks
status results from Take Five , his 1961 single
from the 1959 album Time Out: the rst
million-selling jazz instrumental. Philip Clark
tells his engrossing life-story Brubeck was a
thoroughly admirable man, not least for his long
battle against racism in a de nitive biography.
Brubeck (1920-2012) studied at the
College of the Paci c with Milhaud. Ellington
introduced him at Newport in 1955 as from
the Darius Milhaud school, with a very modern
French in uence . Joined by alto-saxophonist
Paul Desmond in 1951, his Quartet became
one of jazzs most successful groups.
Brubeck experimented with unusual time
signatures: 5/4, 9/8, 11/4. Take Five was
credited to Desmond, but as Clark explains,
the saxophonist produced two unconnected
themes in 5/4 that Brubeck joined, based on a
rhythm by drummer Joe Morello the piano
vamp was Brubecks. It s a knotty story, and
frustratingly the session reels are missing; only
the master-takes remain. e hit single, Clark
explains, was edited from an alternative take.
Its huge success handed Brubeck complete
creative control over his career till the end,
his concerts culminated in Take Five and the
singles B side, Blue Rondo la Turk .
Clark interviewed Brubeck extensively from
1998, and as a colleague of his at Jazz Review,
I knew of the project from early on. e result
comes across as uniquely well-informed
and researched and highly readable
and entertaining. We learn that stand-up
comedian Lenny Bruce was an unlikely
babysitter for Daves son Darius; and that the
proprietors of his rst label, Fantasy, worried
that increasing sales would threaten its tax
write-o status.
e book is ideally pitched for the non-
specialist, with musical concepts like
polytonality an approach derived from
Milhaud vividly explained. However, the
time motif is expressed through a complex
ashback technique, with the narrative of
Brubecks UK tour in 2003 as present . us
Daves discharge from the army in 1946, and
reunion with wife Iola, appears on page 43,
while his marriage to her is described only on
page 320, following an account of his early life.
Rigidly chronological biographies often open
with 50 tedious pages on earlier generations;
Clarks approach is the extreme opposite.
e critical onslaught against such a popular
gure, suspicious to jazz purists, began
www.international-piano.com
Dave Brubeck: A Life In Time
Philip Clark
Headline; 445 pages
early. Clark analyses it deftly, citing Brubeck
supporters such as Parker and Mingus. Critics
complained that Brubeck couldnt swing. Clark
argues that he often simply decided not to:
fascinated by the varieties of rhythm, he made
them co-exist within the same solo.
In a DownBeat article from 1950, Brubeck
wrote that improvisation is the criterion
by which all jazz, written or unwritten, is
judged . But for Clark, Brubeck was as much
a composer as an improviser, concerned with
techniques like stride piano as compositional
material, and focusing on polyrhythms and
polytonality. From the 1960s he wrote large-
scale compositions, including oratorios and
cantatas as well as works for jazz ensemble.
Perhaps the paradox is resolved by saying
that Brubeck appreciated the value of
improvisation as a compositional method in
its own right.
ANDY HAMILTON
T he comedy duo of British-Korean pianist
Hyung-ki Joo and Russian-born violinist
Aleksey Igudesman have produced a self-help
book with predictably outrageous
suggestions, such as the notion of a piano
bench that doubles as a toilet . About this
proposed invention, Joo claims: I could save
so much time and do my business while I m
doing my business.
Igudesman, born in St Petersburg, was
perhaps drawn to ludic antics with a pianist
because his mother was a piano teacher: I
remember that I played games and frolicked
under the piano while my mother was
BOOKS • REVIEWS
Save the World: How to Awaken
Your Creativity
[In German: Rette die Welt:
Wie du deine Kreativität weckst]
Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo
edition a; 358 pages
practising and teaching. Igudesman eventually
married a pianist, and recounts her di culties
in nding a place to practise when on holiday,
just as his partner Joo has similar di culties
when on tour.
Joo o ers keyboard tips, such as to go
running before a practice session, then with
a racing pulse and out of breath, immediately
sit at the piano and play a di cult passage
of a piece. e di cult passage can be also
be something very slow that requires a lot
of control . e point is to train your psyche
to improvise [as] di culties transform into
positive challenges .
Genuine a ection emerges in tributes
to their teachers at the Yehudi Menuhin
School, such as the accompanist/duo pianist
Simon Parkin, a wonderful free spirit
whose classroom exercises included playing
Rachmaninov s Second Piano Concerto as if it
were composed by Messiaen .
After planning to study with Leon Fleisher,
Joo opted instead for the Russian-American
concert pianist Nina Svetlanova, a Neuhaus
pupil, and without going into details,
expresses his happiness with the choice.
Indeed, an overall bonhomie expressed in
these pages explains why international star
pianists, from Emanuel Ax to Yuja Wang,
agree to participate in their routines: because,
they explain, everyone loves to play . And
everyone is a child at heart .
BENJAMIN IVRY
International Piano May/June 2020 71