piano
David Nice
Not even the unengaged or terminally weary could have dozed through this. Pianists have often commented how the Wigmore Steinway is too big for the hall, and most adjust accordingly. Not 27-year-old Italian Beatrice Rana, but not in the bad way of interpreters who simply bash (there was a young Ukrainian here recently who did just that). If she needs to convey sonority at full pitch, she won't compromise; and her soft playing is equally compelling. The certainty of means to ends is unwavering, the calm upright posture at the keyboard somehow at odds with the massiveness she can convey.Her Read more ...
David Nice
In Beethoven anniversary year, there will probably be many more "Moonlight"s, meaning the Sonata, than the real thing (though we've been lucky to see the crescent in close conjunction with Venus these past two nights). Not many pianists would dare to place it at the beginning of a programme. Denis Kozhukhin's paradoxically no-nonsense poetry meant that a constant sense of motion culminated in the whirlwind of the finale, a steady move towards implosion mirrored in the piano transcription of Ravel's La Valse at the end of the programme. In between came perfection in the form of pure song from Read more ...
David Nice
"Citizen. European. Pianist," declares Russian-born, Berlin-based Igor Levit on the front page of his website. One should add, since he wouldn't, Mensch and master of giants. High-level human integrity seems a given when great pianists essay epics: certainly true of Elisabeth Leonskaja and Imogen Cooper tackling respective sonata trilogies by Beethoven and Schubert, or András Schiff in Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier. Last night was on that level. Questions may linger over the nature of Shostakovich's many-headed hydra of a homage to Bach, but none about Levit's expressive intent and execution Read more ...
David Nice
"What is it about Mozart?" asked Sviatoslav Richter in 1982. "Is there a pianist alive who really manages to play him well?...Haydn is infinitely less difficult to play (he's almost easy, in fact). So what is Mozart's secret?" Just over a decade later, he went a long way towards unlocking that secret in a Moscow recital, playing three sonatas and the C minor Fantasia in Grieg's two-piano adaptations with Elisabeth Leonskaja, the younger colleague whose playing he so inspired. And I'm sure that if he were alive today, he would have given the ultimate accolade to his one-time protégée's recital Read more ...
graham.rickson
Schubert: Symphony No 9 Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Maxim Emelyanychev (Linn)There’s a telling photo of Maxim Emelyanychev on page 11 of Linn's booklet, the conductor beaming at the camera, the body language suggesting he's having a hard time actually sitting still. This performance of Schubert 9 is impulsive and upbeat, an irrepressibly positive statement. Yes, this is a Ninth Symphony (or eighth, depending on your point of view), but it's still very much a young composer's work. It's possible to make this music sound like Bruckner, but Emelyanychev’s light touch feels entirely right, Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
As the attention-jostling hype becomes ever more unashamed, we get further from the music. The myths and the 'message' get louder, to the point where the question of whether the music itself might actually be worth hearing can become secondary. I've seen music industry people this year happy to treat live music as a "hang" – in one case that stays in the mind, the headline act at a festival – and to chat through it rather than to listen. Young musicians are told that the correct masquerade when they give interviews is to claim that they have drawn all their inspiration from Read more ...
David Nice
Fine-tuning piano sound to Wigmore acoustics can elude even the greatest. Add a second Steinway and a wide range of percussion instruments, and the risks would seem to be hugely increased. So it was amazing to witness what seemed like sonic perfection throughout yesterday's Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert from the back of the hall. Not only that, but a refined imagination from all four players that came as close to perfection as you could ask for. Pavel Kolesnikov, who so often seems to be associated with London’s most original concert programmes, joined up again with partner Samson Tsoy, a Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
There are encores and encores – most a friendly, minimal farewell gesture from the soloist; some a jolly, festive unwind after a particularly taxing piece. And then there’s the luxury free gift that Sir András Schiff bestowed on us during the second of two Barbican concerts with Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra. Jaws quietly dropped as we realised that Schiff intended to follow up Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto (both gigs formed part of the Barbican’s Beethoven 250 season) with the Allegro con brio first movement of the Waldstein sonata.Surely, this was munificence beyond the Read more ...
David Nice
The megastars are here at the Barbican, for an intensive three days in the case of the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, throughout the season as the hall shines an "Artist Spotlight" on pianist Yuja Wang. Despite a shallow opener showcasing the individual talents of the Los Angeles principals and daft, rollicking Sousa at the end, there was a seriousness of intent and depth of focus that belied the touring glitz. The biggest miracle, perhaps, came in a three-minute encore from Wang - her third - but you couldn't fail to be deeply impressed by the execution of the rest.Just when you think you're Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first movement, at the end of the second theme. All has gone just as you’d expect. A three-chord call to attention – only one more than the so-revolutionary Eroica – and straight to the business of the day, a worker ant of a melody, busying around with inscrutably purposeful energy. The second theme swoops in – then stops, like a sparrow at the end of a Read more ...
David Nice
For the first 20 or so minutes and the second encore of this generous recital, I turned into a Trifonite, in thrall to the 28-year-old Russian pianist's communicative powers. Has Scriabin, in an imperious sweep from early to late, ever made more consistent sense? Could anyone else transcribe the opening sleigh-ride into mysticism and back of Rachmaninov's "choral symphony" The Bells, his most lustrously orchestrated movement, and come out shining?Even when he's bending the music to his own seemingly mercurial will, Trifonov is never less than watchable and worth hearing, though whether his Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
Every ten years or so Thomas Adès writes a piano concerto and the latest had its UK premiere last night at the Royal Festival Hall, played by Kirill Gerstein and conducted by Adès himself. Following on from the youthful, skittish Concerto Conciso of 1998, and the lush, layered In Seven Days of 2008, the new piece, baldly called just Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, sees Adès engaging with the giants of 20th century piano concerto, fashioning something that simultaneously looks backwards and forwards.The concerto has lots of Adès trademarks: rhythmic complexity in the form of polyrhythms and Read more ...