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sommcd0162Whenever I hear Haydn’s piano music played well, I want to rush to my piano to play it myself. Such was the effect of listening to Leon McCawley‘s new ‘Sonatas and Variations’ disc on the Somm label. Haydn’s piano music is not performed enough, in my humble opinion, so it is a pleasure to have a recording of such quality to enjoy.

A brace each of sonatas in major and minor keys, these works have long been part of McCawley’s concert repertoire, and this shows in his deft and insightful handling of articulation, dynamics and Haydn’s rapid changes of mood. Nothing feels forced nor contrived, and there’s wit and humour aplenty, especially in the C major Sonata (No. 60, Hob. XVI/50) which shows Haydn (and McCawley) thoroughly enjoying his mastery of the instrument and its capabilities. McCawley brings elegance and spaciousness to the slow movements, revealing fine details of inner voices. Haydn’s final piano sonata, No. 62 in E flat Hob. XVI/52, which unlike the last sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert was composed some 15 years before Haydn died, rather than at the end of his life, combines grandeur and exuberance in its opening movement, while the slow movement has a stately nobility. The finale is a lively romp, but despite the rapid tempo, there is never any loss of detail or precision.

The F minor Variations are a delight, at once melancholy and wistful in the minor variations, and gracious, playful and warm in the major ones. Interior details are highlighted and a sense of the overall architecture and narrative of the work is clear. And I am pleased to note that McCawley observes all the repeats, which turns this work into something enjoyably substantial. Throughout there is tasteful pedalling and the piano has a lovely clarity, perfect for this music.

Recommended.

Haydn
Piano Sonatas
No. 53 in E minor
No. 60 in C major,
No. 33 in C minor
No. 62 in E flat major
Variations in F minor Hob. HVII/6
Leon McCawley, Piano

SOMMCD 0162

 

 

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marquee20letter20-20vVolunteer

Guest post by Paulette Bochnig Sharkey

I am a volunteer pianist. For the past 12 years, I’ve brought music to residents of assisted living homes, memory-care centers, and retirement communities.

Before becoming a volunteer pianist at age 50, I had played classical music almost exclusively, along with Christmas carols and the occasional Broadway tune or popular movie theme. I love classical music; many of my elderly listeners do, too. They enjoy having piano performance students come from the local university to present practice recitals. Those students play classical music better than I ever could. I’m an amateur pianist, albeit a serious one.

So for my volunteer gigs I focus instead on standards from the 1920s through the 1940s. These songs—especially the ones popular during World War II—have deep emotional meaning for my audiences. When I play “As Time Goes By” or “Sentimental Journey,” my listeners feel a sense of ownership. “You play our music,” they tell me.

For my elderly audiences, this music stirs memories. I recognize the look of nostalgia in their eyes as they remember dancing with the spouse they’ve now lost, or longing for home while away serving in the military.

One hunchbacked octogenarian shuffled to the piano to tell me that his mother played when he was a little boy. Then he burst into tears and sobbed, “I miss her so much.” Sometimes a particular song will inspire a listener to tell me a story. Some are surprisingly personal. Upon hearing “Tenderly,” a rheumy-eyed man whispered in my ear, “That song was the cause of my five children.”

The power of music is never more evident to me than when I volunteer in a dementia unit. Patients arrive slumped mutely in wheelchairs, seeming unaware of their surroundings. But when I play a song like Irving Berlin’s “Always,” they raise their heads and begin singing. Unlocked by the music, the lyrics flow from their long-term memory.

Volunteering offers no monetary compensation. I am paid in kisses blown to me from across the room, in pats on the arm, in glasses of juice offered by shaky hands.

My work as a volunteer pianist is not all hearts and flowers. The pianos I play are often neglected and out of tune. Cell phones ring during my performances. I will always remember the man in my audience who answered his phone and told the caller, “No, I’m not busy, I can talk. I’m just listening to someone play the piano.”

I compete with the roar of vacuum cleaners, with the clattering of lunch dishes being cleared away in nearby dining rooms. On one memorable occasion, a

housekeeper dusted the piano while I was playing it. And then there was the time I got hit by a ball when an audience member decided to multi-task, listening to the piano music while he played a game of fetch with his dog.

I’ve run into a few curmudgeons over the years. One told me I was “no Liberace.” Another approached the piano, leaned in close, and snarled, “Why don’t you go play somewhere else?”

Still, I cannot imagine a more gratifying way to contribute to my community than by being a volunteer pianist. Not long ago, an elderly women slowly steered her walker to the piano as I packed up after a performance. “You have no idea how much sunshine you brought into this room with your music,” she told me. “We were all dancing in our hearts.”

That is my reward. Priceless.

Paulette Bochnig Sharkey, pianist and writer, blogs at https://volunteerpianist.wordpress.com/

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?

My parents took me a to piano recital when I was three because they couldn’t find a babysitter that night. I don’t remember the pieces the pianist played but I was fascinated by the power of music that made the audience quiet for nearly two hours. I thought that if I learned this “language” people would also listen to what I want to say and so I went to my mother after the recital and told her that I wanted to become a pianist. She wasn’t happy about this and so it took me a year to convince her.

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Definitely my teachers, but also each and every collaboration with an orchestra and a conductor has given me the opportunity to learn something new and develop myself.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Learning to say no and finding out my limits.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of? 

All of my performances and recordings are fingerprints of certain stages in my life so far, but my recent album ‘Wonderland’ means a great deal to me. There is a lot of my heart’s blood in it.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

None in particular. Of course there are days when I feel very comfortable with a work and think that I finally understand and own it – until the next day when I suddenly realise that I am still very green

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

There are so many wonderful works I want to play and programme, so I usually pick one bigger work and try to build a story around it. It also depends on what the programme of my next album is. I also of course ask colleagues and people around me for advice.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

There are too many wonderful halls out there, so I can’t name just one or two. It’s not so much a matter of the country or hall I play in, it’s about the interaction between the audience and me. So wherever music unites me with the audience,  I feel “home”.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

Always the ones I am playing at that moment.

When I am off, I don’t listen so much to classical music. I love Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin.

Who are your favourite musicians?

Those who are honest and take risks in the music.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Once I played a concert in Rio de Janeiro and there was a couple sitting in the first row, eating popcorn while listening to my performance. I LOVED that.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

To know what happiness means to you. As long as one is not happy, he/she can not make others happy.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

To appreciate the small things in life.

What is your most treasured possession?

I don’t own them, but I would say my family and my friends are the most essential things in my life. And I actually have quite a nice whisky collection that keeps growing

What is your present state of mind?

I just got out of a two month break. That was a wonderful thing and I am incredibly grateful to my friends who gave me so much energy and joy in this time. Now I am recharged and can’t wait to go back to work.

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott has gained critical acclaim for her performances at major concert halls worldwide and has established herself as one of the most exciting musical talents of today. The Guardian, commenting on her recent performance with the London Symphony Orchestra, said that she “gave the kind of gawp-inducing bravura performance of which legends are made”.

Alice has worked with the world’s leading conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, James Gaffigan, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Vasily Petrenko, Myung-Whun Chung, Hannu Lintu and Robin Ticciati.

More about Alice Sara Ott

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81u7rrpufwl-_sl1500_The Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson died in March 2015. He was one of the most important composers of our time, a composer-pianist in the grand tradition of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov, probably best remembered for his monumental Passcaglia on DSCH, his tribute to Shostakovich composed in 1962. Stevenson has been compared to Liszt and Busoni: he transcribed many works for piano, and he was also a generous supporter of other musicians and students. His musical language is also redolent of these composers, as well Chopin and Alkan, but always with its own distinctive voice and an awareness of his adopted Scottish heritage.

This new disc by pianist and academic Kenneth Hamilton, which marks the beginning of Hamilton’s survey of Stevenson’s vast keyboard output, avoids the really large-scale works, though the Peter Grimes Fantasy is pretty substantial – Stevenson’s own Lisztian operatic paraphrase, in which themes from Britten’s opera are woven into music of expansive, inventive virtuosity and vivid imagination.

The disc works well as a “recital programme” offering an excellent introduction to Stevenson’s varied oeuvre. Alongside the more meaty works such as Beltane Bonfire and Symphonic Elegy for Liszt, there are shorter works, including transcriptions of Scottish folk songs and Three Elizabethan Pieces after John Bull, which are reminiscent of Percy Grainger in the combining of rich harmonies and textures with period music.

Hamilton studied with Stevenson and his understanding of the composer’s personal idioms is evident in his masterful handling of this music: robust and sweepingly romantic in the more bravura works, charming and witty in the shorter pieces with moments of luminous delicacy, as, for example, in Stevenson’s transcription of Rachmaninov’s Lilacs, which is all filigree textures, echoed in the opening of the transcription of Ivor Novello’s We’ll Gather Lilacs.

Recorded on a Hamburg Steinway at the School of Music, Cardiff University, Hamilton achieves a warm resonant sound which is particularly suited to the more expansive, textural works, though occasionally a little too dominant. Overall a most enjoyable disc with comprehensive liner notes by Kenneth Hamilton, which draw on his studies and conversations with Stevenson.

PRIMA FACIE PFCD050 1CD

primafacie.ascrecords.com