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‘Tis the season for listicles and Top 10’s and Best Of’s….so here is my round up of concerts, CDs and other musical events which have delighted and intrigued me in 2017.

Having started the year declaring to myself and my family that I would be doing less concert-going in 2017 in order to free up time for my studies at the Royal College of Music (which turned into a very brief flirtation with a post-graduate course there), I found myself doing as much as ever. My ‘problem’ is that I love live music – I really can’t get enough of it and I’m fortunate in having a number of eager concert-going friends who share my passion, which turns concert-going into a wonderfully social activity.

I’ve tried and failed to keep a note of which concerts I go to each month (note to self to be more organised, perhaps with a spreadsheet (!), next year so that I don’t reach the end of the year trying to recall who, where and what I’ve seen and heard). Major highlights of 2017 include hearing Martha Argerich live for the first time, Richard Goode playing Beethoven and the London Piano Festival. In addition, I’ve forged new and very stimulating musical and writerly friendships and connections.

Here’s my list, in no particular order, plus some recordings I’ve enjoyed and other musical events of interest this year:

Pianists

Martha Argerich (a never-to-be-forgotten performance at RFH – impossible to put into words quite how wonderful her playing is!); Anna Tsybuleva at Wigmore Hall; Tamara Stefanovich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at St John’s Smith Square; Maurizio Pollini at RFH; Jonathan Biss at Milton Court; Igor Levit at Wigmore Hall; Pavel Kolesnikov at Cadogan Hall; Richard Goode at RFH; Murray Perahia at Barbican; Leif Ove Andsnes at RFH; Graham Fitch playing Bach’s Goldbergs at Rosslyn Hill Chapel; Melvyn Tan, Ilya Itin, Charles Owen, Katya Apekisheva, Danny Driver, Lisa Smirnova at King’s Place (London Piano Festival 2017); Cédric Tiberghien at Wigmore Hall; Yevgeny Sudbin and Christina McMaster at Wimbledon International Music Festival; Ivana Gavric at Wigmore Hall; Peter Donohoe (complete Scriabin sonatas) at Milton Court; Daniel Grimwood and Nazrin Rashidova (violin) at St James’s Piccadilly; Helen Anahita Wilson at Shoreditch Treehouse; William Howard at Hoxton Hall and Leighton House (part of his Love Songs project); Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) at Wigmore Hall; Rick Simpson (jazz piano) at RFH (with Leo Richardson Quartet); Stephen Hough with Hertford Symphony Orchestra; Philip Leslie at St -Martin-in-the-Fields

Other concerts/opera

I Musicanti at St John’s Smith Square; NHK Symphony Orchestra at RFH; Gould Piano Trio at Wigmore Hall; Passepartout Duo at NPL Musical Society; Multi-Story Orchestra at Bold Tendencies (Peckham Carpark Prom); BBCSO (Prom 36); Anoushka Shankar with Britten Sinfonia (Prom 41); BBC Philharmonic (Prom 20); Elysian Singers at St John’s Smith Square; Pink Singers at Cadogan Hall; Corinne Morris (cello) at 1901 Arts Club; Joy Lisney (cello) and Laefer Quartet (saxophone) at St John’s Smith Square/PLG young artists; Martin Fröst (clarinet) at Cadogan Hall; Alena Lugovkina (flute) and Anne Denholm (harp) at Dorich House Museum; David Le Page (violin) and Viv McLean (piano) at Riverhouse Barn; Marnie (opera) at ENO; Rowan Hudson Trio at The Bull’s Head

Recordings

Krystian Zimmerman / Late Schubert Piano Sonatas (D959 & D960); Andrew Matthews Owen / Halo; Sadie Harrison / Return of the Nightingales; James Iman / Schoenberg, Boulez, Webern, Amy; Lucas Debargue / Schubert, Szymanowski; Marcus Paus / Odes & Elegies; Maria Marchant / Echoes of Land & Sea; Elspeth Wyllie / Enigmas; Nicholas McCarthy / Echoes; David Braid / Songs Solos + Duos / Hiro Takenouchi / Sterndale Bennett & Schumann; Ishay Shaer / Late Beethoven; Andrew James Johnson / Winter’s Heart;

Events and other musical encounters

Takemitsu Study Day at King’s Place; second Music Into Words mini conference at Morley College; Gramophone Awards Dinner; appearing on Music Matters on BBC Radio 3; weekend piano course at Jackdaws with Stephen Savage; playing at Henry Wood Hall with the London Piano Meetup Group; acting as a syllabus consultant for the London College of Music grade exams and writing teaching notes for the new ABRSM piano syllabus

Reviews

 

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Most of us tend to focus on the things that didn’t go so well in a performance – the misplaced notes, the smudged runs, the memory slips. Analysing why these things happened and exploring solutions to problems or finding ways to “future proof” our music for the next performance are important aspects of the “practice of practising”.

When a performance goes well, we might simply shrug and say “that went well” and briefly bask in the inner glow of success, the satisfaction of a job well done before moving on to the next task and preparing for another performance.

Reflection and critical self-feedback are important aspects of the process of learning and practising, and being able to pinpoint why a performance went well is as useful in the process as identifying and rectifying problem areas.

In early December 2017, I took part in a really delightful concert at the home of Neil Franks, chairman of the Petworth Festival. I had been invited to join him and two other pianists to play music for 2 pianos/8 hands, 6 hands and some solo works. Potentially, this was a nerve-wracking situation for me: I had given only a couple of public performances during the year and felt slightly out of practise as a performer. Added to that, I had to learn the ensemble pieces in a matter of a week, I would be working with people whom I had not met before, on pianos I had never played before. Ok, this was not the Wigmore Hall, but my naturally perfectionist nature wanted to ensure I was well-prepared for the concert so that I did not let down the others and played to the very best of my ability.

As it turned out, the concert proved to be the best thing I have done, musically, since I returned to playing the piano seriously about 10 years ago, and the entire evening was hugely enjoyable and rewarding for all sorts of reasons (read more about the event here). I was on such a high after the concert, I couldn’t sleep that night and spent the entire train journey back to London from Sussex the next day alternately grinning and admiring the lovely flowers I was given at the end of the evening. The following Monday, I had coffee with a pianist friend, and she asked me about the concert – had I been nervous and if so, how did I handle my nerves? What did I play? And – and this is important – exactly why I felt my performance had gone so well. “I really couldn’t say,” I replied. “It was just that it was all perfect!”.

I’ve subsequently allowed myself some time for proper reflection on the performance and drew some useful conclusions:

Choice of repertoire – I selected solo miniatures (works by Peteris Vasks, Chick Corea, Benjamin Britten and William Grant Still) which I knew well (apart from the Corea, of which more in a subsequent post), and had performed several times before. I spent quite a lot of time at home deciding in which order to play the pieces to create the right sense of flow, connection and atmosphere in my solo performance, for the audience and myself. Above all, these are all pieces which I absolutely adore and always enjoy playing.

The other pianists – highly capable, enthusiastic, intelligent, kind and supportive during our rehearsals, and positive in their feedback. The sense of a shared experience and mutual cooperation was so important in creating a really fine concert.

Ambiance – playing a beautifully set up Steinway B in Neil’s lovely country home, with views across the downs and friendly labradors wandering in to see what we were doing, undoubtedly helped take the edge off any performance anxiety

The audience – warm, friendly, enthusiastic, and very generous in their comments, both during the interval and after the concert.

Of course it is not always possible to have such a perfect combination of circumstances to enable a performance to go well, but we can try to go some way to recreating them each time we perform. This is something the Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski says he does to allay his own performance anxiety: try to recall the positive feelings of a previous performance that went well and use this to build confidence and positivity about the next performance. To this I would also add playing repertoire in one which feels totally comfortable (not only have you prepared it carefully but you also like it). Above all, try to enjoy the experience – because sharing music with others is a truly wonderful thing to do.

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I have watched pianist Lucas Debargue with interest since he burst onto the international music scene as the “runner up” in the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition. Described as a “maverick” and a “late starter” because he didn’t have a traditional musical training in conservatoire and doesn’t wear the customary concert attire, he interests me because he has a very personal artistic vision and creative freedom – almost certainly the result of not following the traditional well-trod path of the young concert pianist. (The cover photo on his latest disc seems to reflect this – the artist treading a lonely, snowy path.)

Since then, he’s released two impressive recordings in quick succession. Now this much-anticipated third disc presents a brace of familiar Schubert sonatas – the so-called “little” sonatas in A minor (D784) and A Major (D664) – with a rarely-performed piece, Karol Szymanowski’s second piano sonata, also in A Major. Debargue brings a dark emotional intensity, poignancy and rugged earnestness, when called for, to the first Schubert sonata and also the Szymanowski, thus creating some interesting and satisfying links between two works which on first sight may not appear connected. He fully appreciates the bleak  melancholy inherent in the D784 with its mysterious spare opening motif and the portentous trills and rumbling tremolandos, offset by passages of tender wistfulness (Schubert can feel even more tragic when writing in a major key). The Andante is elegantly paced, but not without its passions, while the finale is frenetic and anxious, its scurrying triplets tempered by sections of bittersweet lyricism.

Ostensibly more “cheerful”, the little A Major has its share of heartrending moments, not least in the second movement to which Debargue brings a desolate intimacy, without ever losing sight of the natural poetry of this music. The finale is sprightly with melodic clarity aplenty and much rhythmic verve.

Any pianist who records Schubert must be very sure of his or her ground, and in these sonatas Debargue displays a musical maturity and thoughtful insight to give a performance which is both convincing and personal.

There’s a brooding melancholy and blistering restlessness in the opening movement of the Syzmanowski sonata which recalls the dark clouds of Schubert’s D784, while the middle movement has a quirky Schubertian tread to it, initially dance-like then more sombre and funereal, and its unusual harmonic language, fluctuating tonalities, and expansiveness also recall Schubert’s writing. It’s a rewarding work, with its full-blooded passionate late-romantic textures (which have gone by the time Szymanowski wrote his third piano sonata), and Debargue is alert to its shifting palette and dark intensity, as well as its monumental structure and narrative thrust.

There’s nothing youthful or unformed about Debargue’s playing in all three works on this disc. There’s a genuine, uncontrived naturalness in his playing, especially in his use of tempo rubato, and his overall approach is mature and thoughtful, suggesting an artist who has not only fully immersed himself in this repertoire but also informed his playing via a wider cultural landscape and interests.

Recommended

Review of Lucas Debargue’s debut disc