By |

Kapustin: Between the Lines

Ophelia Gordon, piano

Nikolai Kapustin (1937–2020) occupies a distinctive place in 20th- and 21st-century music. A classically trained pianist and composer, Kapustin cleverly fused the formal, structural rigour of classical music with the rhythmic vitality and improvisational idioms of jazz. His works defy easy categorisation: though they sound spontaneously jazzy, they are entirely notated in classical form, leaving no space for actual improvisation. This paradox became the hallmark of his style.

Born in Horlivka, Ukraine, Kapustin studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory, under Alexander Goldenweiser, at a time when jazz was still viewed with suspicion by Soviet authorities. Kapustin’s fascination with American jazz pianists like Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner led him to explore the genre secretly and he absorbed its harmonic language, rhythmic energy, and phrasing to create his own compositional language. His music is vibrant, cerebral, witty, exuberant and alive.

Nikolai Kapustin
Ophelia Gordon

British pianist Ophelia Gordon makes a striking recording debut with this album of works by Nikolai Kapustin, drawn to his music as it reflects her own background (she grew up in a household full of music, both jazz and classical), her musical versatility and her desire to challenge the barriers between different genres of music.

Ophelia says, “I dream of a world where classical and jazz musicians can perform side by side, with no gatekeeping or barriers. Kapustin’s music makes that dream feel possible. It sits beautifully in the space between genres. It speaks directly to jazz musicians through its harmony and rhythm, and to classical musicians through its texture and form.”

This album is a celebration of the space “between the lines” where Kapustin’s music sits. In preparation for the recording, Ophelia tracked down many long out-of-print vinyl recordings of the composer’s own performances to find the essence of Kapustin’s voice. The recording is also a milestone in that it’s the first full release of Kapustin’s music by a female British pianist.

The album opens with Big Band Sounds, Op. 46 (1986), a piece rich in swing and the textures and timbres of Big Band jazz. Ophelia sashays through it with panache, making a bold opening statement for the rest of her debut album.

Selections from the 24 Preludes follow. Based on Chopin’s model, most of the Preludes presented here are upbeat and foot-tapping, but No. 5 in D Major is more wistful, with hints of Bill Evans. Contemplation follows, a gentle, introspective piece which conjures up a late-night smoky jazz club. Ophelia gives this a wonderful spaciousness, so much so that it sounds improvised there and then.

The Paraphrase on “Aquarela do Brasil” is Kapustin’s take the famous Brazilian standard “Brazil,” composed by Ary Barroso in 1939. Ophelia played along with a samba beat “to lock into the groove” and the piece has a joyful, pacey mood, rich in colour and textures, with occasional moments of almost Lisztian bravura.

The eight Concert Etudes are probably Kapustin’s most well-known pieces and each has a distinct character – punchy, impressionistic, groovy, funky, the Etudes reflect the influences of jazz greats such as Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Ophelia really revels in this music, switching effortlessly between the different characters of each Etude – from the shimmering sixths (perhaps drawn from Chopin?) to the driving energy of Toccatina. There are sonorous bass sounds and hints of Rachmaninov in some of the chords, reminding us of Kapustin’s heritage. Performed here as the complete set, the Etudes are witty, poetic, fierce, relentless, and often beautiful too.

To close, the Paraphrase on Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca” for Two Pianos. With its nod to the virtuosic paraphrases of Franz Liszt, with its dramatic flourishes and sparkling fioriture, the piece has a wonderful vibrant energy. Unable to find another pianist with whom to record the piece, Ophelia learnt both parts herself:

“The process was lengthy and difficult but incredibly rewarding. I split the parts into “rhythm” and “melody.” Though both switch roles, it was essential to record the rhythm part first, then play the solo part alongside it. I now perform this live with the rhythm coming through a PA system!”

Recorded on a characterful 1961 Steinway, the piano sound is rich and warm, colourful and immediate, and engineered with a microphone setup designed to balance the immediacy of a jazz trio with the depth and clarity of the classical solo piano. Ophelia plays with a natural virtuosity which never feels contrived nor forced, completely at home with Kapustin’s rhythmic vitality, and myriad harmonies and textures. She clearly loves this music because, as she herself says in the notes, it allows her to “be all of myself at the piano”.

With detailed notes by Ophelia Gordon herself, lending a more personal take on traditional liner notes, this is an impressive debut recording that leaves one wanting to hear more from this bold and authentic artist.

Kapustin: Between the Lines is released on 14 November on the Divine Art label (CD and streaming).

(Artist image: Ben Cillard)

By |

‘The World of Yesterday’ – written & performed by Sir Stephen Hough with the Bournemouth Syphony Orchestra, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. Wednesday 26th February, Lighthouse, Poole

British pianist Sir Stephen Hough hadn’t intended to write a piano concerto. But during the dark days of the COVID pandemic, he was approached to write a score for a film about a concert pianist writing a piano concerto… With little to do but take Zoom calls, “it seemed like a wonderful way to keep me busy”, and, intrigued by the film’s plot, he began jotting down ideas.

As the world emerged from the pandemic, the film project stalled and Stephen’s concert diary began to fill up again, but he still had the sketches for the film score and, with the support of four orchestras (the Utah, Singapore and Adelaide symphonies, and the Hallé) he wrote his piano concerto ‘The World of Yesterday’. It received its world premiere with the Utah Symphony Orchestra in January 2024 and a recording made with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder is available on the Hyperion label.

I had the pleasure of hearing Hough perform his concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in a well-conceived programme called Notes of Nostalgia. Given its theme, the concerto sat perfectly between Brahms’ Third Symphony and Elgar’s Enigma Variations – all three works infused with a certain wistfulness interposed with personal reflection, warmth and wit.

Hough’s concerto takes its inspiration, in part, from Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s atmospheric memoir of the same name, which depicts Vienna and Viennese culture in the last golden days of the Habsburg Empire before Europe was torn apart by war. You can almost smell the aroma of Viennese coffee and taste the Sacher-Torte in the quieter passages of the piece.

The music is rich in nostalgia, but without the heart-tugging poignancy of Chopin, for instance: it’s a more reflective yet positive reminiscence of another time. Scored in a single movement but with distinct sections, ‘The World of Yesterday’ has a filmic quality (“something from the 1940s”, my husband commented as we left the concert hall) – you certainly hear nods to Korngold’s film scores, and it shares Korngold’s romantic sweep, but there are also references to Rachmaninov (particularly in the very glittery virtuosic solo sections), Copland, the Warsaw Concerto…but at no point do these references feel like pastiche. And if you’re familiar with Hough’s wonderful transcriptions of Rodgers and Hammerstein, you’ll find similar idioms here (I half-expected Hough to segue into the Carousel Waltz at one point). And yes, there is a waltz too – not so much a Viennese waltz but something more sultry, redolent of Bill Evans and a smoky, late-night jazz club.

Hearing the composer play his own work was like a bridge across time to another world of yesterday, a time when composers wrote piano concertos which they performed themselves: Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev all performed their own concertos. Showcasing their prowess and personality as both performer and composer, these works becoming their “calling cards” as they toured to give concerts.

The music has an almost “vintage” quality: surprisingly traditional in its direct communication with orchestra and audience, and its idioms, motifs and references to other composers (there’s not a hint of that “squeaky gate” atonality one often associates with contemporary classical music). The piano enjoys Brahmsian interactions with the orchestra and Rachmaninov-esque cadenzas, but Hough’s does break with tradition in a few significant ways. First, the concerto has a narrative title, rather than just an opus number or key, which undoubtedly guides the audience, even without a programme note. Additionally, the cadenza, traditionally heard at the end of a movement, comes very early, after an orchestral ‘prelude’. Here the piano is solo, notes and motifs sparkling in the upper register (later mirrored by the piccolo).

Above all, The World of Yesterday is a richly textured, virtuosic and joyful celebration of past influences, rather than a poignant glance back to a better time. It’s full of warmth and wit, affection and humour: it made me smile, it thoroughly uplifted.

After all, isn’t that what music should do?

‘The World of Yesterday’ is released on 28 February on the Hyperion label

Stephen Hough
Sketch of what would be Hough’s Piano Concerto (credit: Stephen Hough)

By |

Described by Terry Lewis of Jaques Samuels Pianos as “one of the best kept secrets in the UK” and by Musical Opinion as “a most gifted artist”, pianist, teacher and performance coach Christine Croshaw has recently retired from Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, where she taught for nearly 50 years.

Miss Croshaw, who celebrated her 80th birthday in October 2022, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a concert pianist and revered teacher. She studied with Harold Craxton, Gordon Green and Vivian Langrish, and was awarded all the major prizes for solo piano, chamber music and song accompaniment, including the coveted Chappell Gold Medal.

In addition to her solo work, she has worked as a noted collaborative pianist, partnering many eminent artists including Nathan Milstein, Alan Civil, Antonio Janigro, Robert Winn, Peter-Lukas Graf, Jacques Zoon and Michel Debost.

The opportunity to play recitals with Christine Croshaw was something not to be missed. Always a wonderful fresh musical approach to whatever the repertoire. I remember so often being touched by the candid and nuanced phrases which emanated from her hands. Treasured memories. 

Robert Winn, flautist

As a pioneering music educator and performance coach, she was one of the first to recognise the benefits of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) for performing musicians, in particular in relieving stage fright and the anxiety of playing from memory. In 2014 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for her “seminal contribution to music education” at the Music EXPO/Classic FM Awards at London’s Barbican Centre.

Shortly after her 60th birthday, Christine Croshaw faced a huge challenge in her personal and professional life when she lost most of her sight due to haemorrhages behind the retinas of both eyes. She had been looking forward to more solo and collaborative work, with concert dates already in her diary. Determined not to give up playing, she referred to the techniques of NLP, which had allowed her to eliminate memory anxiety, and embarked on a solo career, playing and recording everything from memory. She gave many words and music recitals with leading actors, including Sir Derek Jacobi, Edward Fox, Prunella Scales and Dame Eileen Atkins, and released two acclaimed recordings of solo piano music by Camille Saint-Saens and Gabriel Fauré, the latter rightly seen as one of the “go to” recordings of the composer’s piano music.

Here colleagues, friends and former students pay tribute to Christine Croshaw on the occasion of her 80th birthday.

She is a lady who possesses a rare and quietly enchanting charm and sweetness with a greatly generous heart.

The mastery and command evoked by her playing has, in my thinking, that touch of aristocratic and refined artistry, that flash of light tenderness, the fleet of foot touch, which in earlier times was the stamp and style of Solomon, Myra Hess and Clara Haskell.

Edward Fox OBE, actor

I have long admired her crisply pliant playing, especially in her recordings, which in its unshowy but characterful style seems to me to reflect exactly the person.

Roger Vignoles, pianist

Christine Croshaw. What a force!

After being introduced by a dear mutual friend at a recital, I knew she was enormously good company, with a witheringly dry wit and a winning line in wry observations.

I then heard her play the Fauré Ballade with such unflashy thoughtfulness and such technical ease that you would never for a moment believe that this was music usually swerved by even the most virtuosic. The fact that for the last 20 years she has been learning and performing this repertoire whilst almost completely blind adds a layer of awe to my admiration of her as a musician.

It’s time – way beyond time in fact – that we celebrated (crowed for?) La Croshaw, an unsung hero of the British piano world.

Katie Derham, BBC Radio Three and BBC Proms presenter 

Studying with Christine is almost a martial art. She believes fully and correctly that if the mind and body are not aligned then nothing can really happen. A complete musician; for Christine music is an addiction not a career.

She is that rare performer of natural brilliance for whom the psychology of learning, and how to best enable fellow musicians, is a golden thread running through her life.

There are too many lessons I recall with fondness, where moments of real frustration have been dissolved by fits of laughter. Humour is her secret weapon, and her stories of her life in music are to be treasured, usually over a cocktail!

I am one of countless pianists who owes more to Christine than he would ever readily accept.

Andrew Matthews-Owen, pianist, professorial staff, Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

It is a challenge to describe Christine Croshaw adequately in her roles as pianist and teacher; in common with all great musicians, what she communicates in her playing, and verbally to her students, defies any easy analysis.

The ability to dig deep into a score, to really hear what a piece of music is ‘saying’ on both micro and macro levels, and to communicate these things with absolute technical focus and musical integrity, is at the centre of Christine’s approach. This sounds like it might be a dry way to teach, but the reality is quite the opposite: lessons are full of laughter; intensity and rigour are cushioned by a sense of play and fun.

Christine is a truly holistic teacher; she is deeply interested in the whole person, to the extent that I came to realise the best, possibly only, way to improve as a pianist would be to work on my personal development in all ways: physically, artistically and emotionally. I am enormously grateful to Christine for her musicianship, technical knowledge, her insights, perceptiveness, personal warmth and her sense of humour.

John Reid, pianist, Chamber Music Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

She is such a well-grounded yet open-minded musician. I remember mentioning that I thought NLP might have interesting applications for musical performance. Little did I suspect how quickly she would investigate and seriously study it, and then apply it to her teaching, both individually and in classes in quite groundbreaking ways. She immediately dispensed with any of the cultishness surrounding this psychological discipline or any attempt to take credit for or ownership of any new pedagogical ‘method’. She just generously gave her new-found knowledge to anyone who was interested. This total lack of self-aggrandisement was also evident in her playing….It was clear, thoughtful and moving and just went straight to the heart of the music.

Douglas Finch, pianist, composer and professor of piano at Trinity-Laban

Christine was always very approachable, friendly and always somewhat self deprecating. She was modest and unassuming; great qualities in a teacher and performer….I was aware of the high regarding which she was held and how greatly loved she was by generations of students.

Philip Fowke, pianist

Christine played a key role in my development, not just as a pianist, but perhaps more importantly as a person that worked in music, with musicians. That might sound unnecessarily cryptic, but what I found so extraordinarily inspiring and unfailingly effective about Christine’s teaching was that everything she said and demonstrated was completely connected to and drawn from her many years’ experience as a professional pianist of the highest level. As a BMus Year 1, it was quite something to be having coaching sessions on canonic violin sonatas with someone that had performed this repertoire with Nathan Milstein, but looking back, what was perhaps more unusual was the sheer breadth of Christine’s knowledge – of the wind and piano repertoire, of Lied and Chanson, and also more informal music making contexts such as choral accompaniment, ‘light music’ as it used to be called, and dance accompaniment. Whatever I brought to Christine, she would have lots of useful things to say that were not only connected to the music itself, but also to how it should be prepared, learnt and rehearsed, and how to manage and lead the collaborative interactions that went along with these processes. Throughout my four years as an undergraduate my piano trio played to her almost every week, and the rehearsal techniques that she took us through are the ones that I still use today and pass on to my own students and the groups that I coach. I remember as a final year student, telling Christine that I felt that I still couldn’t really reliably produce a particular legato effect that she had explained to me several times in the first year… “Oh, don’t worry, Aleks”, she said, “these things can often take a couple of decades. I’m still realising what people really meant when they were talking to me about music when I was your age, sometimes these things take time.” It was a very reassuring thing to say to a student who, at the time, was in far too much of a hurry to learn everything as soon as possible!

Aleks Szram, pianist and BMus Programme Leader, Trinity Laban

I worked with pianist Peter Higgins, who studied with Christine; there were coaching sessions with Christine, which I enjoyed very much, and I wish her a happy retirement.

Katarina Karneus, mezzo soprano

I have known Christine since we were both young students at the RAM living in Minnie Freeman’s house in West Hampstead. That should bring back some memories!

I remember playing some 2 piano concerts with her which, which of course was very enjoyable. Playing the Bartok Sonata was certainly no problem for her, which showed what an excellent technique she had even then!

Since those early days our paths have gone in different directions but I was always impressed with her musicality and unassuming personality and her quiet but concentrated attitude.

I am sure many students will wish her to continue teaching and share her natural musical knowledge. I am sure that Christine will want to carry on and enjoy helping others . Lucky them.

Martin Jones, pianist

An earlier, shorter version of this article appeared in Classical Music magazine’s online edition

 

By |

To Steinway Hall in London last week to celebrate the release of the third volume of Norma Fisher At The BBC, a recording project initiated by Sonetto Classics to bring Norma Fisher’s remarkable pianism to a wider audience.

Born in London in 1940 to Russian-Polish parents, Norma Fisher’s talent was evident from a young age. Mentored by Ilona Kabos, Gina Bachauer and Annie Fischer, as a young woman, barely out of her teens, she won prizes at major piano competitions, including the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, and shared the Piano Prize (with Vladimir Ashkenazy) at the 1963 Harriet Cohen International Music Awards; that same year she made her Proms debut. She appeared at major concert venues around the world and with some of the “greats” of the era, amongst them Jacqueline du Pré. Hailed as one of the finest pianists the country had ever produced, she broadcast extensively for the BBC in the 1950s and 60s – at a time when this was the key to succeeding as a classical musician in the UK – yet these performances were never committed to disc. In the 1990s she noticed a tremor in her right hand, which was eventually diagnosed as focal dystonia, one of the cruellest conditions to befall a musician, and withdrew from the concert stage.

“I developed a focal dystonia,” she says, “a highly-debilitating neurological condition that affected my right hand, causing the muscles to seize up without warning. Public performances became unbearably nerve-wracking, knowing that at any moment my hand could just stop working. It never actually happened mid-way through a concert, but I didn’t want to inflict that on myself or an audience and it seemed only a matter of time before it could actually do so.”

She turned to teaching, and has established a reputation as one of the finest piano teachers in the world, nurturing young talents such as Pavel Kolesnikov and Anna Fedorova. She also regularly serves on international competition juries and is artistic director of London Master Classes – which is where I first met her.

Observing Norma teaching talented young students at a London Master Classes event was immensely inspiring and stimulating. Chatting to Norma during a break in the class, her enthusiasm and passion was evident and her eyes literally shone with the excitement of encouraging these talented young musicians. In an interview for this site, she stressed “the importance of sound, understanding the depths and possibilities the keyboard has to offer, and how vital is stylistic awareness“, and one of the chief aims of her teaching is the importance of an “individual sound world”, combined with delicacy and precision (one hears this in former students like Pavel Kolesnikov, where the influence of his teacher is clear in his own personal sound world).

These qualities are more than evident in the three volumes of Norma Fisher’s BBC recordings, now remastered and released on the Sonetto Classics label. An “instinctive pianist”, by her own admission, who eschewed extensive analysis in favour of vibrancy of sound and breadth of expression, these recordings reveal the full range of Norma Fisher’s talents. There is drama and passion, nuance and texture, glittering virtuosity and delicacy of touch, sweet timbres and subtle dynamics, and above all, a profound musical understanding in her interpretations. And due to the constraints of the original recordings and broadcasts (artist and producer were allowed only 90 minutes to make a 60 minute recording and there was almost no opportunity for editing in the way there is today), these recordings have a wonderful spontaneity and freshness – in effect, true “live” performances.

The event at Steinway Hall on 11 May was both a celebration of the launch of the third CD, but also a tribute to Norma Fisher’s remarkable life in music – as both a performer and an inspiring teacher – and many of the guests were personal friends and close colleagues (including Piers Lane, Peter Frankl, Tasmin Little, Dmitri Alexeev, Nelly Miricioiu and John Tomlinson) as well as some of her former students, including two more recent graduates, Siqian Li and Daniel Hyanwoo, who both performed at the event.

Above all, this event seemed to perfectly embody Norma Fisher’s belief that “If we can’t share, there is no point in life, and I think that will remain my philosophy until my dying day“. Norma has shared her music and her musical wisdom throughout her life, and this was an occasion where we all shared in the joy of music and music making.

Norma Fisher At The BBC is released in three volumes from Sonetto Classics