Appearing as both pianist and composer, Stephen Hough wraps fiery Schumann and Chopin around the London premiere of his own sonatina.
Keywords: Recital, Young Musicians
| Stephen Hough | Piano |
| Automne | Cécile Chaminade |
| Autre Fois | Cécile Chaminade |
| Les Sylvains | Cécile Chaminade |
| Fantasie in C major | Robert Schumann |
| Sonatina Nostalgica | Stephen Hough |
| Sonata No 3 in B minor | Frédéric Chopin |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
Grigory Sokolov, photo: Mary Slepkova / DG Grigory Sokolov has worked hard to secure privileges that few contemporary musicians can boast. He gives practically no interviews, rarely visits the recording studio, has performed solo for a number of years and compiles his own recital programmes, without particularly hurrying to announce them. He first sat at a piano at the age of five, almost 70 years ago. Ever since he has been reluctant to part with his beloved instrument, especially during his lengthy performances, giving endless encores (at times as long as a separate recital). Paradoxically, he is a rare example of an artist who communicates with the outside world almost exclusively through his performances, which force reviewers into extraordinary, at times quite humorous, verbal gymnastics in search of the right concepts to describe the artistry of his playing and the aura he creates around him. A voluminous anthology of surprising metaphors might be compiled from the texts on Sokolov’s playing, which may suggest that it is impossible to capture the personality of this remarkable pianist, let alone his interpretations, in words. Bartłomiej Gembicki
Augustin Hadelich, photo: Suxiao_Yang Augustin Hadelich used the time of the Covid-19 pandemic to study solo works by Johann Sebastian Bach. He has the good fortune to play on a unique violin called ‘Leduc’, once owned by the famous virtuoso Henryk Szeryng and considered by some to be the last work of the Cremonese lutenist Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. On this instrument, he recorded a two-CD album of Bach sonatas and partitas. Hadelich matched a copy of a Baroque bow to an eighteenth-century violin, but without completely abandoning the ‘modern’ aesthetic in which he grew up. Two Bach partitas will open and close his recital at the Warsaw Philharmonic, consisting of varied examples of solo violin music. In his Blue/s Forms, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson drew on intervals characteristic of blues and jazz that are lowered for expressive purposes (so-called blue notes). David Lang’s Mystery Sonatas, a cycle premiered in 2014 by Augustin Hadelich, is a conscious (albeit distant) reference to the famous work of the brilliant Baroque violinist Heinrich Ignaz Biber. As for Eugène Ysaÿe’s showstopping Sonata No. 3, dedicated to Romanian composer George Enescu, it ranks alongside Bach’s sonatas and partitas among the greatest and most popular challenges of the solo violin repertoire. The concert will take place in the Concert Hall, and not, as previously planned, in the Chamber Music Hall.
András Schiff, photo: Nadia F Romanini The repertoire will be announced by the artist on the stage.
An interviewer recently asked Lang Lang what his thoughts were about the word genius. The pianist answered that he thought nothing of it, adding that he was happy first and foremost to be a musician and to perform masterpieces from past and present for concert audiences. Lang Lang’s greatest aim in any concert, he went on, was to make a connection with the audience through music – to elicit emotions and to give something that people would remember. It’s nearly three years since Lang Lang gave his last solo recital in Hamburg. With a well-balanced programme of Gabriel Fauré, Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin, he will once again do the honours in the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie.
Every season, the »Master Pianists« concert series presents a promising young talent who has the potential to become a star. The choice was not difficult this time round: since his explosive success at the 2021 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, 25-year-old Bruce Liu has been literally swamped with concert offers. An exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in spring 2022 was followed in the summer by an unprecedented triumphal procession from one European festival to the next. Liu’s recital programmes last year always included compositions by Rameau, Ravel, Liszt and Chopin – music that Bruce Liu connects with his native Paris, and that will also be on his first album. »Music has a power that helps me put my emotional house in order« – this is how the Canadian pianist with Chinese roots describes the importance of piano playing in his life.
Alexander Yakovlev is a graduate of the Rostov State Conservatory, where he also completed postgraduate studies with Sergei Osipenko and studied composition with Leonid Klinichev. He then studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Alexei Lyubimov and in Berlin at the University of the Arts with Pascal Devoyon. The pianist’s international career grew rapidly after he won the Chopin Competition in Rome in 2006. The Vatican radio broadcast of his performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor was heard around the world. After a series of notable debuts on such prestigious stages as Carnegie Hall in New York, Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Grand Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Alexander Yakovlev has inspired an ever-growing public demand for his artistry.
There is nothing the Russian pianist Arcadi Volodos could not play on his instrument. He quickly made a name for himself as a specialist in the highly virtuosic repertoire, but he also has a deep insight into the music like very few pianists of his generation. The Süddeutsche Zeitung accurately described him as »a searcher, a thinker, a spiritual musician«. Arcadi Volodos is the perfect artist to perform the music of Franz Schubert, who, with the piano sonatas of his middle and late creative period, opened the door to a sound cosmos of unfathomable breadth. The Piano Sonata D 845 – a work full of drama and dark passion – is a particularly beautiful part of that cosmos.
The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, born in 1810, was considered a child prodigy: his piano playing was technically far ahead of his time, and his use of pedals greatly expanded the tonal and technical possibilities of the instrument. Although Chopin followed in the tradition of great role models such as Bach, Mozart and Schubert, he was also particularly influenced by Polish folk music and Italian bel canto. In Chopin’s music, melodies meet great musical demands. Selected piano works by Frédéric Chopin will be performed at the Laeiszhalle by Andrea Merlo, who studied at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre and attracted attention as a soloist at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
With virtuosic aplomb and an unusually broad repertoire, the Lithuanian Lukas Geniušas is making his mark as an exceptional young pianist. Geniušas combines Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor, a familiar milestone of the piano repertoire despite its many difficulties, with an exciting and rarely performed work by Frederic Rzewski, in which Geniušas takes on the role of speaking pianist. Frederic Rzewski’s »De profundis« (From the Depths) refers to a letter written by Oscar Wilde. Wilde wrote this forbidden love letter from prison after being convicted and incarcerated for his homosexuality. Spoken elements from Wilde’s text and instrumental passages become a psychological profile in word and music, through the performance of which Geniušas showcases his acting talent too. What links Rzewski’s work and Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor is their shared existential expression and revolutionary power.
»If there are any living piano gods at all, this man is definitely one of them.« Anyone who has ever heard a piano recital by Grigory Sokolov can only agree with RONDO magazine. Without show and glamour, solely through the power of his art, the exceptional pianist succeeds in turning each of his concerts into an extraordinary experience. You want to be there when he casts his spell with a precise touch, pointed rhythm and absolutely convincing interpretation. As a person, Sokolov is completely at the service of the composition. When he plays, everything suddenly becomes clear: this is how it has to sound. This is music in its purest form! No matter which programme he chooses – always announced six months in advance.
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