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The transfer of the International Piano Series to St John’s Smith Square while the Southbank Centre undergoes a facelift is proving successful and popular. An elegant venue with a fine acoustic and a beautiful Steinway piano, coupled with one of the UK’s most gifted pianists active today, made for an evening of music making of the highest calibre, in a diverse programme which opened with Schubert and closed with Rachmaninov.

Steven Osborne
(photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

Schubert’s second set of Impromptus D935 are less frequently performed than the first set, with the exception of the third of the set (a set of variations based on the Rosamunde theme). The first and the last, both in F minor but very contrasting, were presented in this concert. The word “Impromptu” is misleading, suggesting a small-scale extemporaneous salon piece or album leaf. Schubert’s Impromptus, composed in 1827, his post-Winterreise year of fervent creativity, are tightly-structured and highly cohesive works.

There is nothing “small scale” about the opening of the first of the D935, and Steven Osborne‘s account of this was brisk, almost terse, and bold, with a grandeur redolent of Beethoven at his most expansively gestural. But Schubert does not linger in this territory for long and soon the music moved into a far more introverted realm. The middle section, tender duetting fragments over an undulating accompaniment, was poetic, intimate and ethereal. By contrast, the other F minor Impromptu was infused with Hungarian flavours, with offbeat rhythms and twisting scalic figures. Osborne pulled it off with a modest bravado, alert always to Schubert’s miraculous harmonic shifts and fleeting moods.

Read my full review here

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The 2015/16 season at St John’s Smith Square (SJSS) was heralded by real trumpets as two members of the London Mozart Players performed Stravinsky’s Fanfare for a New Theatre.

I like St John’s very much as a venue. A short walk from Westminster and nestled amongst government offices, it is London’s only Baroque concert hall (designed by Thomas Archer and completed in 1728), though its programmes feature a broad repertoire of music from early to uber-contemporary. As a former church, it boasts a fine acoustic and I have enjoyed some excellent piano recitals there, including concerts by Paul Badura-Skoda, Claire Hammond and Richard Uttley.

For 2015/16, SJSS becomes the temporary home of the International Piano Series (IPS), normally resident at the Southbank Centre, which is undergoing a much-needed upgrade. Highlights of the new IPS season include concerts by established artists such as Steven Osborne, Nikolai Demidenko, Jean-Efllam Bavouzet and Imogen Cooper as well as younger, up-and-coming pianists. My highlights from this series are concerts by Denis Koshukhin (music by Haydn, Brahms, Bartok, Liszt and Wagner trans. Lisz), Lukas Geniušas (Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok and Prokofiev), Steven Osborne (Schubert, Debussy, Rachmaninoff) and Tamara Stefanovich (Copland, Carter, Ives). Full details about the series here

The major season highlight for me is Warren Mailley-Smith‘s 11-concert survey of Chopin’s complete solo piano music, commencing in September 2015. The concerts have a broadly chronological thread running through them, while each will explore a particular aspect of Chopin’s oeuvre, including the Mazurkas, Etudes, Ballades, Scherzi and ever-popular Preludes. This promises to be a real treat for audiences and a marathon undertaking for Warren, who by his own admission, adores this music and is looking forward to a year of total immersion in Chopin. (A detailed preview of the series and an interview with Warren will appear in a later post.)

Fast-forward to today, and Rolf Hind’s fascinating and eclectic Occupy the Pianos festival returns to SJSS in September. 10 concerts over 3 days feature brand new works together with music by Morton Feldman, John Cage and John Adams. Further information about the series here

There is yet more to excite pianophiles in an excellent series of lunchtime concerts, including recitals by the Françoise-Green Duo in which first meets second Viennese School alongside new commissions (21 January, 25 February, 31 March, 7 April, 12 May 2016), together with concerts by Viv McLean (1 October, with soprano Sarah Gabriel) and Joseph Houston (10 December, Debussy, Messiaen, Feldman, Liszt and new works by Colin Matthews and Simon Holt).

My 2015/16 diary is already very full!

Full details of the 2015/15 season at St John’s Smith Square here (including a link to download the new season brochure)

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(photo: Marco Borggreve)

I first heard French pianist Alexandre Tharaud at the Wigmore Hall in October 2013, and his performance of Bach, Schubert and Chopin left me somewhat underwhelmed.

In his concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the International Piano Series, he left me wanting more….

How clever of Alexandre Tharaud to open his QEH concert with Schubert’s Moments musicaux, salon pieces which combine charm and tenderness with an unsettling edginess to create Schubert’s emotional and musical landscape in microcosm. From the opening notes of the first of the suite, Tharaud imbued the music with intimacy and set the tone for the whole evening, even in the more extrovert sentences of Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso” from Miroirs. This was piano playing which encouraged concentrated listening.

Read my full review here

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© Dario Acosta Photography / DG

He looks like he should still be at school, yet he plays with the commanding presence, exceptional technical facility and deep commitment a professional artist thrice his years would envy. He’s slight, floppy haired, yet he can bring power and richness to the boldest fortissimo passages, while his pianissimos are delicate whispers. Welcome to the world of Daniil Trifonov.

Superlatives quickly become redundant when attempting to describe the pianistic feats of this young artist, winner in 2011 of both the Tchaikovsky and Rubenstein Competitions, and still only 23. He’s already got a clutch of recordings under his belt, and is in demand around the world. His London concert marked his Royal Festival Hall debut (he has already played at the Wigmore and Queen Elizabeth Halls), and it was therefore a pity that due to an unfortunate, and probably accidental, concert clash with Behzod Abduraimov’s Wigmore Hall recital, the Festival Hall was not as full-to-bursting as it might have been for this eagerly-anticipated debut.

Read my full review here