The Wigmore Hall’s 2017/18 season has been announced, and in addition to a really splendid variety of chamber music and performers, piano fans can look forward to a fantastic line up of pianists including Sir Andras Schiff, Peter Donohoe, Imogen Cooper, Steven Osborne and Angela Hewitt, as well as young rising stars Daniil Trifonov and Pavel Kolesnikov, amongst many others.
Sadly, there are only four women pianists in this impressive roster.
The full list is here:
I believe it was the pianist Claudio Arrau who said that passion intensifies with age, and I am sure this is the case when one hits a significant birthday, as I did last winter.
50 – it feels like a large number. It’s half a century, and for a while leading up to my Big Birthday, it felt very significant. Admittedly, I felt the same when approaching my 40th birthday – in fact, I felt worse because at that time I was going through a difficult period in my life, trying to find my identity after emerging from the fog of the early years of motherhood and feeling invisible to everyone but my child. But at 40 I returned to the piano seriously, with a passion, after a break of over 15 years, and I quickly realised I had been waiting for this creative impulse to awaken in me again. Repressed for the years while I was first working in London, moving house, getting married, starting a family, it now re-emerged with the maturity which comes from age and experience, and which has, over the last ten years, led me to fully immerse myself in music and writing, which is where I had always truly wanted to be.
When I was a teenager I wanted to be a professional musician (I also wanted to be a published writer….), but a dismissive comment by a school music teacher quickly scotched that desire. Looking back, he was probably being realistic, but the comment stung and has remained with me into adulthood, becoming the spur which urged me into the place where I am now, professionally (a piano teacher and writer on music). I’m neither a concert pianist nor a novelist, but I do perform, gaining satisfaction and pleasure from doing so, and this blog and my concert reviewing and other writing more than satisfies the writerly itch. Now, at 50, I am realistic about my capabilities, but I do not feel that the entry into my second half-century should be a time when I sit back and rest on my laurels.
The decade of my 40s was an interesting one. It was a time when I learnt that the boundaries of one’s emotional life are not completely impermeable, and that being married does not make one immune to another person’s attention and admiration. It was also the decade during which I established an identity (and not just my writerly nom de plume), now that my son was growing more independent, and I could explore and re-explore the things that I cared about as a teenager and young adult (music, art, literature). Establishing this blog (in 2010) marked my decision to share my activities with others in a wider public forum, and it has led to many fascinating and inspiring encounters with wonderful musicians (via the Meet the Artist series) and forging new connections and friendships with fellow writers, bloggers, concert reviewers, teachers, amateur pianists and music lovers.
***
As a musician, maturity (in terms of years, rather than attitude) gives one perspective, the ability to take the long view, and not sweat the small stuff quite so much (because there is Big Stuff looming: old age and what that brings with it…). I think the “passion” Arrau speaks of comes from the realisation that one has a finite amount of time left, that one should seize the day and make the most of it. For me this has led to a greater sense of mindfulness about what I do, being fully “in the moment” when I play the piano (and indeed elsewhere in my life), trying to always look forward rather than going back over what has been, combined with a maturity of outlook which enables me to really appreciate what I have now.
Maturity can also bring confidence and the self-assuredness of knowing one has found one’s niche and metier. In my musical life, the single most significant and confident step I have taken as I’ve matured is that I’ve ceased constantly comparing myself to others (a toxic habit which can fuel resentment, jealously, and lack of self-esteem), and instead try to follow Schumann’s advice:
“As you grow older converse more with scores than with virtuosi“
As we mature, it is important to recognise the value of what we have to say, personally, as musicians and to measure that against the score, rather than other people’s perceptions, preconceptions or interpretations of the music. Thus the challenge becomes between oneself and the music, rather than constantly seeking or needing validation from peers, audiences or colleagues (though I do have a handful of trusted friends, colleagues and a teacher/mentor whose opinions I value and respect), and one appreciates that it is more important to gain approval from the works themselves by living with them and in them.
I have much to look forward to in the next decade (and beyond, I hope), with a number of personal projects on the horizon this year which will offer new challenges, both intellectually and musically. And, all things considered, 50 is just a number……
Our times maybe troubled, deeply troubled, but thank goodness we can still gain pleasure and solace from music – and Daniel Grimwood‘s recently-released disc of piano music by Adolph von Henselt offers over an hour of unalloyed bliss.
If you didn’t know the name of the composer beforehand – and many may not – the opening notes of the first track might have you confidently exclaiming “oh it’s Chopin!”. There’s the same ominous tread in the opening as Chopin’s Op 49 Fantasie. And then you might think “it’s Liszt!” on hearing the tumbling virtuosic passages which sparkle under the lightness and precision of Daniel Grimwood’s touch.
Other works recall the bittersweet lyricism of Schubert or look forward to the richer textures of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. But this is Adolph Von Henselt, a little known Bavarian-born composer whom Grimwood champions.
Organised in the manner of an old-fashioned recital disc, there is much to savour and enjoy in the variety of works explored here. Virtuosic concert pieces sit comfortably alongside elegant miniatures, offering the listener a broad flavour of Henselt’s style and oeuvre. The Nocturnes, Impromptus and Études prove Henselt was every bit a master of these genres as his contemporaries Chopin and Liszt – and he made similar technical and interpretative demands on the pianist too. There are passages of vertiginous virtuosity which appear sweeping and effortless rather than merely showy with Daniel’s acute sense of the scale and pacing of this music. It’s lushly expressive but Daniel’s clarity and delicacy means it is never cloying or too heavily perfumed.
This disc would go into my “lateral listening” recommendations: if you love Chopin, I guarantee you’ll love Henselt just as much.
This is the second of Daniel’s recordings for the Edition Peters label and it has delightful cover artwork by Janet Lynch and comprehensive liner notes. As Daniel himself says of this disc: “It’s my small way of restoring Henselt…..to his rightful place in the repertoire”
Highly recommended
Brahms and Messiaen do not immediately strike one as natural concert programme companions: Brahms teems with polyphony and darkness while Messiaen is about light, timbre, vertical chords, vibrant colour – indeed Messiaen hated Brahms, declaring that “it’s always raining” in Brahms’ music.
But unlikely or daring juxtapositions can create interesting and unexpected contrasts and connections, as one work shines a new light on another, enriching both listener and performer’s experience – and this was certainly my take on this remarkable concert by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich at St John’s Smith Square which combined Brahms’ Sonata in F minor, Op 34b with Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen.
If there are connections to be made between the music that made up this large-scale programme it is that both works are mighty musical edifices, two great mountains which transcend mere notes on the page and which demonstrate each composer’s wish to remain in long moments of emotional distress, relaxation or ecstasy. Both works also display a high level of perfectionism in their structures and organisation, replete with many details, motifs and musical pathways which could easily become blurred in a lesser performance.
(picture credit Neda Navaee)
The Cross-Eyed Pianist