‘Songs of the Spirit’: A major new choral work for choirs
Be part of the Royal School of Church Music's centenary celebrations - become a co-commissioning choir for a major new choral work by Thomas Hewitt Jones
A Rare Spotlight on the Right Hand – ‘All Right’ by Béla Hartmann
Nine Piano Pieces for the Right Hand Alone for advanced pianists by Béla Hartmann
In piano literature, works for the left hand alone have a more familiar history – often born of necessity after injury. Paul Wittgenstein, for example, famously commissioned left-hand concertos from Ravel and Hindemith. Perhaps the most famous music for left hand alone, apart from Ravel’s concerto, is Scriabin’s Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. 9
In his new book, pianist and pedagogue Béla Hartmann places the focus on the right hand, explaining that it “has had very little time spent on it, probably because it enjoys the bulk of our attention in normal piano music. It is certainly true that amongst pianists it is the right hand that must often take a sabbatical or retire completely due to overuse, misuse or pure bad luck, thereby leaving the left hand to keep the show going on by itself. However, the left hand suffers its fair share of injuries and it would seem a shame to neglect those occasions where the right hand may need or deserve to take a solo role.”
Hartmann himself suffered an injury to his left hand, which prompted him to explore create new music for those in need of some right handed challenges.
‘All Right’, a collection of nine piano pieces for the right hand alone, serves both a practical and artistic purpose: it fills a gap in the repertoire and challenges pianists to think differently about technical and expressive possibilities. This suite of nine miniatures is arranged in approximate order of difficulty – Consolation; Chase; Valse Fugitive; Menuet; March; Elegy; Song of the Thief; Etude; Prelude – and each piece has a distinct character, with widely varying styles. For example there’s a classical minuet and trio, a romantic virtuoso showpiece, elegiac moments, and more playful or introspective pieces.
Each piece cleverly balances technical demands with virtuosity and expression, making this music both instructive and enjoyable to play. Often, the right hand is both soloist and accompanist, and the fact that one hand is playing isn’t always obvious – or always foregrounded. Some pieces are energetic (Prelude, Chase), requiring nimble fingers and agility. Others test other techniques such as pedalling (Consolation) where notes in the lower register must be sustained below a chordal motif in the treble (itself a test in legato chord playing). Valse Fugitive, meanwhile, has contrasting articulation in the treble and bass, while other pieces require spread notes/arpeggiation and large leaps.
These pieces are far more than technical exercises. In fact, in their structure and style, they owe something to Chopin’s Études in that they offer the pianist attractive, imaginative and well-crafted music which also tests various pianistic skills. They offer real musical content for both student and teacher, which is rich, varied and emotionally engaging, and could also serve in therapeutic or adaptive contexts, for example, when a pianist’s left hand is injured or needs rest.
‘All Right’ is available from Good Music Publishing where you can view sample pages, listen to audio examples and order the music.
This site is free to access and advert-free, and takes many hours each month to compile and edit. If you find value and joy in this site, please consider making a donation to support its continuance:
Eric Lu’s Schubert: Emotional Depth or Missed Timing?
Schubert: Impromptus Opp.90 and 142 – Eric Lu, piano (Warner Classics)
The two sets of Impromptus are my favourite piano pieces by Franz Schubert, music which I’ve explored as both player and listener since my teens. As a consequence, I’m very fussy about performances and interpretations of this music
In his second recording of Schubert’s piano music, Eric Lu, winner of both the Leeds and Chopin competitions, presents both sets of Impromptus. In interviews, Lu has expressed his affinity with and affection for Schubert’s music, stating that, “It is difficult to describe how meaningful his music is to me….he is the composer who moves me most intensely.“
A shame then, that Lu doesn’t seem to translate these statements when he actually plays the music. Ponderous tempos, lingering rubato and over-emphasised agogic accents, all presumblay intended to suggest “emotional depth” abound, particularly in the D898/1, D935/1 and D935/2. Here, I feel Lu mistakes slowness for profound emotion. This is most evident in the very first impromptu. That bare G that opens the piece is sustained far too long, to the point where one wonders if the pianist has perhaps forgotten what comes next. The opening theme is sluggish (the overall tempo is too slow here) and detracts from the drama and contrasting moods (portrayed in Schubert’s characteristic volte-faces between minor and major keys). I felt this performance was contrived, somewhat egocentric – and find myself repeating some of what I said about Lu’s previous Schubert release. Oh dear! (https://crosseyedpianist.com/2022/12/30/leeds-winners-release-albums/)
He’s better in the more lively impromptus. The D899/2 ripples along in its outer sections, with a clear dance pulse in the bass which adds to the sense of forward propulsion. The final impromptu, a fiery Hungarian dance, has rhythmic bite which contrasts with sparkling scalic passages.
Lu is often described as “a poet of the piano” (a moniker attributed to many a young competition winner these days!) and there’s no doubting his ability to make a beautiful sound, perhaps most evident on this recording in the G-flat major impromptu where Lu achieves a singing melodic line, sensitively phrased, over a subtly shifting bass of almost continuous movement.
The thing about this music is that Schubert gives plenty of directions and a rather more “literal” interpretation, free of wandering rubato and unnecessary accents, actually feels more in keeping with the composer’s emotional landscape.
And for that I would recommend recordings by more mature, experienced Schubert players such as Maria Joao Pires, Mitsuko Uchida or Murray Perahia.
But Lu is not yet 30 and there’s plenty of time for him to absorb all the subtleties and details of Schubert’s writing. So maybe I’ll find more to love in his next release, when it comes….
Finishing the Unfinished: Martin Helmchen’s Schubert sonatas
The impulse to complete an unfinished work by a composer such as Schubert arises from a blend of artistic curiosity, historical empathy and creative challenge. For many musicians and scholars, an incomplete score feels like a fragment of a larger, untold story – and one that invites further exploration. Incomplete music, such as Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony or the Sonata in F-sharp minor, D571, give tantalising glimpses of musical ideas that may reach to something beyond their surviving pages. To engage with them is to enter a conversation with Schubert’s imagination: reconstructing, interpreting and attempting to extend his thoughts with respect and insight.
Scholars and musicians often study sketches, harmonic trajectories and stylistic patterns to infer how the composer might have continued. For some, this process is an act of homage – an attempt to illuminate what time or circumstance denied completion. For others, it’s an opportunity to test one’s own understanding of the composer’s musical voice and logic, a kind of creative empathy that bridges scholarship and performance.
In the first instalment of his complete recording of Schubert’s piano sonatas, German pianist Martin Helmchen offers his completion of the fragmentary Sonata in F-sharp minor, D571.
Only the first movement of this work exists, and that was abandoned by the composer before it was completed. This is not the first time someone has attempted to complete this unfinished work: pianists including Paul Badura-Skoda, Malcolm Bilson, and Martino Tirimo have sought to realise Schubert’s assumed intentions, drawing hypothetical completions of the music from such separately published pieces as the piece (usually assumed to be an Andante) in A major, D604, and the Allegro vivace in D major and Allegro in F-sharp minor, D570. The question that this sonata poses – and indeed the other fragmentary sonatas by Schubert – is did Schubert stop composing simply because he ran out of time or inclination, or did not have enough money to buy music manuscript paper? But incomplete doesn’t mean insignificant, and Helmchen, clearly appreciating the significance of the fragment of D571 (it is, after all, a very beautiful piece of music), has completed these movements with great care and understanding, inspired by the recordings and the analyses of Paul Badura-Skoda.
On this recording, we now have a complete Sonata D571, scored in four movements, its wistful, almost surreal opening movement – completed by Helmchen – giving way to an elegant, lyrical Andante, a suitably playful Scherzo, and a dramatic rondo finale, also completed by Helmchen, which feels “wholly Schubert” with its shifting harmonies, contrasting textures and moods, and a radiant middle section which briefly recalls the opening movement in its poignancy. The overall result of this completion is convincing rather than speculative, – ‘proper’ music by a musician – due in no small part to Helmchen’s affinity with the music of Schubert in general (listen to the rest of the disc for a full appreciation of Helmchen’s sensitive Schubert playing). He plays with great maturity, alert to Schubert’s shifting soundworld and innate intimacy, even in the more extrovert movements or passages, and his natural pacing, supple phrasing and clear tone never get in the way of the music. This release, recorded on a modern Bösendorfer 280, with an alluring singing tone, is the first in a series of recordings by Martin Helmchen to mark the 200th anniversary of Schubert’s death in 2028.
Martin Helmchen’s Schubert Sonatas Volume 1 is released on the Alpha Classics label on CD and streaming
Header image: Facsimile of the autograph manuscript of Schubert’s Sonata in G major D894 (British Library)
Why we play
Guest post by Orlando Murrin
Have you ever wondered why we ‘play’ musical instruments? If you’re like me, it doesn’t feel at all like playing; ‘practising’, ‘learning’ or ‘studying’ are the usual descriptions.
This got me thinking – are we missing out? What if – at least some of the time – we approached the piano in a more playful spirit? Instead of self-improvement, we sat down at the keyboard and had fun for its own sake. Experimented… Fooled about… Played, in the true sense.
I’m in the lucky position of being an amateur, with occasional, optional opportunities to perform. For a short while as a teenager I considered pursuing a career in music but my then teacher, the Czech pianist Liza Fuchova, advised strongly against it. ‘You’ll get far more pleasure from it as a hobby,’ she said, generously ignoring the side-issue that I wasn’t nearly talented enough.
At this time – the 1970s – piano lessons were in vogue, and many homes had instruments. At parties, there would be an unseemly scrambling for who could bag the keyboard first, and woe betide you if you didn’t have a flashy piece or two up your sleeve with which to dazzle the others. I find it sad so few homes seem to have pianos nowadays, or not real ones.
Last year I met up with a friend over from New York. He always asks how my piano is going, which is sweet of him considering he’s Steve Ross, one the greatest living cabaret pianists.
‘I’m learning some Scarlatti,’ I told him, ‘but I’m not sure why. At the touch of a button, I can hear it performed by the greatest pianists in the world, infinitely better than I ever will. Seriously – why play at all?’
He looked at me, puzzled. ‘Because it’s a beautiful thing to do.’
I’ve thought about this ever since, and of course he’s right. Those of us who play – with any degree of competence – are blessed. We’re also the envy of everyone else.
I feel particularly lucky that for various reasons I’ve kept my playing up all these years. I’m now in my sixties. How many times have I heard people say: ‘I stopped at Grade 5. I so wish I hadn’t.’?
Another comment I get a lot is, ‘It must be fantastic just to sit down and play’. I usually counter this with a boring monologue about how you don’t – you’re too busy learning new pieces and toiling away at technical problems – but what if they have a point? What if playing is what it’s really all about?
With this in mind, I’ve recently been setting aside my ‘serious’ music projects (for which read, far too difficult for me ever to play in public but that won’t stop me trying) and going through my huge sheet music selection, picking things out to play through for pleasure. Having caught Barenboim conducting ‘Bolero’ on YouTube, I fumbled my way through it (love the modulation on the last page), and after watching Death in Venice, Mahler’s Adagietto. When Radio 3 played ‘Lotus Blossom’ by Billy Strayhorn, I was so intrigued by the weird, drifting harmonies that I bought a sheet music download – two quid well spent.
While we’re talking words, here are two worth scrutinising in this context. We use ‘amateur’ to mean sub-professional, forgetting that it really means doing the thing for love. Not out of duty, or to improve ourselves, or to keep our minds nimble. But because we love it.
And finally, the French verb for attending a recital or concert is assister. Next time I play in front of an audience, I will try and think of it as assisting me – helping me to bring the music alive – rather than listening out for mistakes.
Seen that way, playing stops being a test and becomes a form of participation: with the instrument, the music, and sometimes the people in the room. Which feels indeed a beautiful thing to do.
If you want to be reminded of what ‘playing’ should be, watch young children at the piano. Their small hands tumble, their concentration is fierce, and the delight is unmistakable – theirs and the audience’s alike. They’re not performing, or proving anything. They really are playing.
Orlando Murrin is a food writer, now crime writer, and forever amateur pianist.
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 