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This was an excellent performance in all respects and reflected her greatly matured view of the work since the International Chopin Competition. The central section 0f the Scherzo was alluring and reflective in mood. The challenging Presto was brought off with understanding of the implied polyphony allied with the mysterious emotional significance of this movement.
Again I always prefer to consider it as the grief of the mind in torment at the loss of the loved one rather than the more programmatic unlikely in Chopin's view of his own compositions 'wind over the graves'. After the interval Schumann's Kreisleriana Op. Kriesleriana was presented publicly as eight sketches of the fictional character Kapellmeister Kreisler, a rather crazy conductor-composer who was a literary figure created by the marvellous German Romantic writer E.
The piece is actually based on the form of an inventive grotesque satirical novel Hoffmann wrote with the remarkable title: The fictional author of this novel Kater Murr Growler the Cat is actually a caricature of the German petit bourgeois class. When he sent the manuscript of his own book to the printers, the two got inexplicably mixed up when the book was published. An excellent wheeze Mr. Such devices remind me of Laurence Sterne in that great experimental novel Tristram Shandy. He used and transformed one of her musical themes in the work. It is a very difficult work to present as a coherent structure and Cheung did not always succeed in making the thorny transitions from wildness to lyrical love dream with skill and moving poetry.
The extreme shifting of moods in this Schumann piece were not always captured through tempo and dynamics although I found the polyphony rather blurred due to the pedal and some tempi too rushed for my view of the work. It is fiendishly difficult to bring this work off successfully - Horowitz, Richter and Kempff are my benchmarks. Schumann advised Clara not to play the work too often as the passions aroused and nostalgia would be too strong to bear. I had similar musical maturity reservations concerning her Liszt Mephisto Waltz No.
This piece requires a terrifyingly intense and insidious Mephistophelian seductiveness and evil. Her piano 'technique' for want of a better word dominated the notes certainly, even magnificently, but the overall dramatic emotional impact was lacking for me. Liszt was obsessed by Faust and he chose the account of the story by Nikolaus Lenau to set this piece of programme music.
This passage from Lenau appears in the actual score and should be deeply considered and graphically imagined by any pianist who has the temerity to approach the work:. Mephistopheles and Faust wander by, and Mephistopheles persuades Faust to enter and join in the festivities. Mephistopheles grabs the violin from the hands of a sleepy violinist and draws from the instrument seductive and erotically intoxicating strains.
The amorous Faust whirls about with a sensual village beauty [the landlord's daughter] in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the violin grow softer and softer, and the nightingale sings his love-soaked song. My benchmark for this work? An overwhelming and unforgettable lifetime musical experience. This was without doubt one of the most extraordinary recitals ever to have taken place in the Dworek. The musical range of this ambitious programme was remarkable - from Bach to Scriabin.
Here we have a complete musician and pianist that is almost faultless surely, except perhaps to the ears of most accomplished and experienced professors of music. He has also taken part in masterclasses with the most eminent of musicians. He began with a superb account of Kinderszenen Scenes from Childhood Op.
I will choose my favourite scenes although others may choose differently of course! The opening Of Foreign Lands and Peoples was lyrical and most eloquent of a child's rich imagination of distant places. His tone and touch on the Steinway were luminous and like velvet. There was a brilliant decrescendo in An Important Event.
Traumerei Dreaming was taken at just the right tempo to avoid gluey sentimentality yet preserving the other-worldliness and innocence of those childhood dreams not yet clouded by experience. The 'frightening' part of Frightening was so expressive and the sensitivity he engaged us with in Child Falling Asleep and The Poet Speaks was hypnotic. The Sinfonia that opens the Johann Sebastian Bach Partita in C minor BWV Bartlett took surprisingly romantically with great nobility and I thought the rest of the work would be taken with the same ambience.
However this was not to be. The Allemande was possessed of a beautiful finger legato cantabile, each voice superbly delineated without the use of the pedal - the indication of supreme pianistic skill. The Courante continued the superb singing line. It was this point that a reminiscence came into my mind. His touch and tone were so elegant and refined with such extraordinary nuance and colour, I kept asking myself why and of whom I was reminded in this approach to Bach's keyboard works on the piano.
Then it dawned on me: The Sarabande was introspective yet poised and somehow detached from earthly care. The Rondeau and Capriccio replete with subtle and elegant energy, understated yet magnificently polyphonic.
The gift of playing Mozart gracefully with fine taste was evident in all the movements of the sonata. The Allegro preserved a childhood mood with a precision and subtlety of approach given to few pianists, never sounding mawkish.
The brilliant passage-work of the Allegro assai was superbly brought off and the contrasting cantabile sections merged in a seamless legato. Few pianists can offer such a balanced view of Mozart. Again the singing cantabile melody above with a subdued anchoring left hand accompaniment Bartlett utilized to perfection in the two Rachmaninoff Preludes from Op. In the G major lyrical melody soared above the floating accompaniment textures. In the G-sharp minor the same fine balance between a singing legato melodic line and passionate accompaniment was maintained throughout.
Alexander Scriabin in later life. For this work Scriabin wrote a programme: Thinly veiled in transparent cloud A star shines softly, far and lonely. The azure secret Of its radiance beckons, lulls me … Vehement desire, sensual, insane, sweet … Now! Joyfully I fly upward toward you, Freely I take wing. Mad dance, godlike play … I draw near in my longing … Drink you in, sea of light, you light of my own self …. The sonata ends in triumphal joy. It could almost compare, but not of course in maturity and experience of life's tragedies, to the awesome performance we heard in Duszniki in August by Vadym Kholodenko which left me speechless with nothing left to say or comment.
This young pianist is a true musical and pianistic discovery at a remarkable level of sophisticated musicianship scarcely ever achieved in youth. Just watch this meteor rise. He has been guided by many eminent professors, made numerous award-winning recordings and appeared as a soloist with prestigious international orchestras.
So it was with some excitement and anticipation I looked forward to this piano recital. The first half of his recital was dominated by late works of Liszt, a few of which I was unfamiliar with.
08, "Am Camin" (By the fireside), violin part - Kindle edition by Hans Sitt, Robert Schumann note taking and highlighting while reading Kinderszehen, Op. 15, No. Kinderszehen, Op. 15, No. 08, "Am Camin" (By the fireside), violin part eBook: Hans Sitt, Robert Schumann: bahana-line.com: Kindle Store.
In his old age Liszt became quite economical and abstract in expression, quite the opposite to the profligacy of imagination of his youth. Although brief this piece not only foreshadows harmonic compositional procedures of the future but is alluring in itself. Ullman played this piece in a soft flourishes at the keyboard. The lyrical melodic line is affectingly embellished in this almost metaphysical two minute fragment. Frage und Antwort Sleepless! Question and Answer Nocturne, S The question is in E minor and the answer is in E major perhaps with some biblical reference. Ullman approached this piece in much the same restrained style.
Much of the inspiration for this piece lies in the fraught relationship between Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein and Liszt. Both fervent Catholics sharing a mystical bond they were attempting to win an annulment of her marriage. Ullman created some beautiful meditative moments but resorted to surprisingly heavy dynamics, rather rough in sound quality, which was surprising in view of the ardent religious and spiritual nature of this piece.
The great Liszt scholar Alan Walker wonders if it is a parody of the Dies Irae where death lurks below a dance with the devil. Or a quotation from a popular Hungarian song? Liszt does not clarify matters himself for us although he did scribble on the work 'May one write or listen to such a thing? This became far more pronounced in the Mephisto Waltz No. It is a significantly different to the first Mephisto Waltz and I felt far harsher without the same imaginative 'programme' for the listener to follow.
I was astounded by Ullman's virtuosity in this work but his neglect of tonal and dynamic gradation and actual quality of tone seemed to become rather unpleasant. Agreed Liszt was a man of extremes and became ant-social in old age but I felt his imitation of orchestral instruments, particularly and including the celeste, very charming and idiomatic.
Photo by Karolina Kuras. On many occasions the tone verged on the harsh and broke through the sound ceiling of the instrument. The interpretation possessed a rather relentless dynamic with scarcely any gradation in tone or colour, a hectic flush to the tempi and rhythm.
Hard to say these things when the work is clearly a spectacular showpiece for the pianist which he brought off pianistically in awesome fashion with finger dexterity to marvel at. A pity as it was otherwise a magnificent account of the orchestral transcription. Petrushka's Room by Alexandre Benois. A convincing performance of rhythmic complexity and charm. A final ballet scored for piano Cinderella by Prokofiev was an elegant account with finesse. Meeting with the audience Guest: And every voice sang under her fingers, all was song With her wide repertoire she travelled the world giving concerts, taking part in festivals and making numerous recordings.
She has been a juror many times on the most prestigious piano competitions in the world. However none of this accounts for the profoundly musical and moving recital she gave this evening at the age of Vladimir Horowitz once commented that what one expects of a great pianist is 'heart, intelligence and technique. They possessed exquisite beauty of tone with absolute delicacy and evenness of touch which scarcely any pianist today achieves with the same consistency.
These qualities became clearly evident in her Debussy miniatures. This was heartbreaking in its period nostalgia and an expression of what has been lost to us through the ravages of time. Tears were inevitable as this ageless 90 year old artist seemed to be bidding us farewell from the enchanted groves of music. A truly unfathomable musical evening. This recital was a most instructive evening and a useful corrective.
However I have remained curious throughout my life and there were some treasures to be found here. The Multi Trio opened with a rather lugubrious work by Roxanna Panufnik b. I found it scarcely uplifting but clearly the Trio have mastered such a rather emotionally remote piece to my mind. Nightingale who is late home and being interrogated by his increasingly hysterical wife as to why he is late. I was not aware that Paderewski had written songs but of course one must assume he would have.
I found these songs to be touching but rather a confirmation of sadness as part of the national Polish psyche. My observations have not changed concerning the sensitivity and sensibility of this true artist. She has a refined tone and touch perfectly suited to the composer. This was exactly the feeling created this evening. Here there was no hysteria, no search for cunningly hidden voices in the polyphony, no desire to impress with virtuosity. Rather a melancholic conclusion to a remarkable recital of Polish music that would have been somewhat obscure to most listeners.
Three Generations of Polish Pianism. I remember hearing this young pianist at past Duszniki Zdroj master classes. However I need not have worried. I really could not fault this account that only now requires the personal and musical maturity of the inevitable passing years. After all the glittering virtuosic displays of the last few days I suddenly found myself immersed in one the greatest philosophical statements in Western piano music on the nature of life. It expresses our relation to death and the brief passage of time given to us here on earth.
Bies managed to take me on this journey with great skill. I was rather beyond judging the pianism on this voyage as the music was the focus. One of my most memorable musical experiences - there are only a few - was Richter playing Beethoven Op. Again impressively idiomatic with a clear understanding of the composer's intentions.
Fresh, inventive and expressive. The composition is in the late Romantic style, reminiscent of Schumann and Liszt. Such a contrast to his later piano music in almost every way, at least for this listener. Loved the work and this performance of it. A young pianist already building an enviable reputation and far further to go. Photograph with dedications to Zofia Bernstein-Meyer. From Igor Strojecki's collection.
Maurice Ravel — was a great French composer and master orchestrator who maintains a place among the most performed and recorded composers of all time. He is often identified with Debussy as a chief proponent of musical Impressionism, but Ravel melded exotic harmonies with classical formal structures to create a personal, refined style that transcends a single label. About his famous piamo piece inspired by Liszt and with a title translated as "Water Games," Ravel provided the following commentary: This piece, inspired by the noise of water and by the musical sounds which make one hear the sprays water, the cascades, and the brooks, is based on two motives in the manner of the movement of a sonata—without, however, subjecting itself to the classical tonal plan.
From childhood he was torn between literature and music, but he managed to combine these two loves even in some of his purely instrumental music by using poetry and dramatic narrative to color and direct the musical discourse. Rather, they are nostalgic remembrances of youth filtered through the experience of adulthood. For Piano Solo By KV; Vivaldi Concerto in A minor, op. Ravel Violin Sonata No. Quartet in g Op 3 No 3 Violin 1 Documents. Vivaldi - Concerto in G major Op. Concerto for 2 violin in A minor Op. Each day we unveil a new book deal at a specially discounted price - for that day only.
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