piano
David Nice
"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to me in art: simplicity, depth and spirituality". The same is true of the personality revealed in this slim but by no means undernourishing volume from one of our time's most fascinating pianists.The reflections on music and literature in the second half are more revelatory than the memoir of his precociously gifted childhood and youth, where Kissin's refusal to be hard on anyone or waspish gives a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
While the 36 records reviewed below run the gamut of Wreckless Eric to Democratic Republic of the Congo Afro-electronica, this month there’s also a special, one-off section for modern classical. This is due to an ear-pleasing haul of releases reaching theartsdesk on Vinyl lately. Modern classical, often computer-treated, is on the rise, recalling the long ago days when tweedy collectors would have chests of classical to dig into on Sunday afternoons, place on weighty old stereos, and sit quietly, eyes closed, contemplating the eternal verities (well, I knew one older gent who did that, back Read more ...
David Nice
It could have been your standard Russian touring programme: Tchaikovsky ballet music as hors d'oeuvre, Rachmaninov piano concerto, Shostakovich symphony. But the symphony was hardly the usual (Sixth rather than Fifth or Tenth). And any chance should be taken to hear London-born Freddy Kempf, a phenomenal artist incapable of playing a routine phrase, on his relatively rare visits to his native city.Kempf is a pianist in a million. At first you may wonder if the bucking and circling around the keyboard is absolutely necessary. But it produces the sound: the deep staccatos which highlight only Read more ...
David Nice
Anyone who missed the opening Southbank concerts of the Chinike! Orchestra, figurehead of a foundation which aims to give much-needed help to young Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians, could and now can (on YouTube) catch snippets of the players in action on the splendid documentary about young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. There's no doubt at all that Kanneh-Mason, BBC Young Musician 2016, who reprised his already celebrated interpretation of Haydn's C major Cello Concerto in All Saints Hove on Saturday night to launch the Brighton Festival, is the real deal, and so are the Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
You wouldn’t guess it from her name, but Janina Fialkowska isn’t actually Polish. You wouldn’t guess from her Chopin either, which is sensitive and supple, always emotive and deeply idiomatic. The Canadian pianist (her father was Polish) has recently come to wider attention for her Chopin interpretations through a series of well-received albums on the ATMA label, making this all-Chopin Wigmore Hall recital a particularly attractive proposition.There is a directness to Fialkowska’s interpretations that is both disarming and immediately engaging. The melody always leads, with the left-hand Read more ...
David Nice
Traditional musical formats rarely suit the individual talent, but the highly-motivated player always finds a way. I first got to talk to Alec Frank-Gemmill in the very sociable surroundings of the Pärnu Festival in Estonia, a gathering most musicians describe as the highlight of their year, with the phenomenal Estonian Festival Orchestra brought together by Paavo Järvi as its core. Frank-Gemmill's secure base is the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, another army of unusual generals. His solo engagements take him to extraordinary places, and thanks to the long-term support of the Borletti-Buitoni Read more ...
graham.rickson
Chopin: Mazurkas Ivana Gavric (Edition Classics)Ivana Gavric suggests that Chopin’s Mazurkas are “short, poignant, diary entries”, and her performances remind us how the greatest composers are never constrained when writing miniatures. As with Bartók’s vast Mikrokosmos, where the simplest, sparest studies sound fully realised. Gavric sticks to mazurkas composed before 1838, preferring their unmannered rusticity. It's a shock to read a critic in 1833 describing Chopin's Op. 7 set as containing “ear-splitting discords, harsh modulations, ugly distortions of melody and rhythm”. Gavric Read more ...
David Nice
Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when we have Debussy's two books of Préludes? In the hands, that is, of a pianist magician who holds the key to this wild parade, demi-real wonderland, call it what you will. I've only heard two wizards equal to the whole sequence: on disc, Krystian Zimerman, graced by a wide recorded range the old masters could never command, and now, in the concert hall, Alexander Melnikov. Between them, they prove that Debussy can be not only ravishingly remote, but violent, too, and scary as hell.Debussy's curiosity spans thousands of years, from ancient Egyptian funerary Read more ...
David Nice
"Late Style", the theme and title of pianist Jonathan Biss's three-concert miniseries, need not be synonymous with terminal thoughts of death. This recital ranged from introspection (Brahms), radiant simplicity (Schumann) and aphoristic minimalism (Kurtág) to robust self-assertion (the end of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie, Brahms again), all of it guided by strength of intellect. Unfortunately the crespuscular, coffin-like interior of Milton Court's Concert Hall, even less attractive than the Queen Elizabeth Hall of memory and devoid of any floral touch, made any struggle for the light Read more ...
graham.rickson
Eyvind Alnæs: Piano Concerto & Symphony Håvard Gimse (piano), Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Eivind Aadland (Lawo Classics)Eyvind Alnæs’s C Minor Symphony, written in 1897 after his return to Norway from studying in Leipzig, hints at great things, a contemporary Norwegian critic writing that “one must hope that the composer may live under such conditions that he may reap the rewards of his talent, rather than having to bury it into everyday toil and trouble.” You suspect that this handsomely crafted large-scale work appeared just a decade or so late, unable to compete with the sonic thrills Read more ...
David Nice
It's a rare concert when nothing need be questioned about the orchestral playing. The usual nagging doubts – about whether any of the London orchestras has a recognisable sound-identity, or whether Rattle's swipe agains the two main London concert halls as merely "adequate" means players can't make a proper mark here – simply vanished. Under regular visitor Jakub Hrůša, the Philharmonia last night simply sounded like a top-quality central European orchestra producing the ideal light, shade and energy for Brahms – and it made its own warmth, a very difficult thing to do in the Festival Hall. Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Age is finally catching up with Maurizio Pollini. This recital was one of a series to mark the pianist’s 75th birthday, presenting Beethoven piano sonatas, music at the core of his repertoire. His legendary status was justified by these readings, his usual combination of rich, robust voicing and elegant, craggy lyricism. But the technical problems were too apparent to ignore, especially the uneven passagework and clumsy transitions. Fortunately, though, Pollini’s innate understanding of this repertoire shone through, and the playing improved as it went on, culminating in an "Appasionata" that Read more ...