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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.

Read my full review here

 

(picture credit Neda Navaee)

 

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The Southbank Centre (SBC) yesterday announced its 2017/18 programme and there’s an embarrassment of riches for lovers of the piano and its literature with concerts featuring established international artists and rising stars. I am particularly looking forward to performances by Maurizio Pollini, Vikingur Olaffson, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mitsuko Uchida and Artist-in-Residence Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who will be performing Ligeti’s Etudes.

Young virtuosos

This year’s rising stars, Katia Buniatishvili, Alice Sara Ott and Benjamin Grosvenor offer a kaleidoscope of contrasting personalities and styles, while Bertrand Chamayoux makes his International Piano Series debut in the opening concert of the season.

Music from the North

As part of the festival Nordic Matters, Vikingur Olaffson makes his debut in this year’s series  with Brahms’ Piano Sonata No.3 and its five movements containing echoes of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, alongside that most quintessential of Nordic performers, the Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes.

The unmissable virtuosos

Enjoy a tremendous range of musical masterpieces while being thrilled by virtuosity with world-famous figures such as Maurizio Pollini, Stephen Hough and Paul Lewis.

A new partnership

Two recitals continue Southbank Centre’s partnership with Mitsuko Uchida. Renowned for her outstanding interpretations of Schubert, this piano legend embarks on the first of her recitals featuring the piano sonatas, from the boundless energy of the G major Sonata to the emotional depths plumbed by the sonata in B major.

Offering a different perspective, Southbank Centre Artist in Residence, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, throws light on 20th century scores with his performance of Ligeti’s Etudes as part of a weekend to celebrate the composer’s music.

These events go on general sale at 10am on Thursday 23 February.

Source: SBC website

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Maurizio Pollini (© Cosimo Filippini)
Maurizio Pollini (© Cosimo Filippini)

How does one define “greatness” in a pianist? Is it the willingness to tackle a broad sweep of repertoire from Baroque to present-day? Profound musicality and penetrating insights, founded on pristine technique? A fearless approach to risk-taking in live concerts? Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini is the sum of these parts – and much more – as his recent concerts in London have demonstrated. Here is an artist who is equally at home in the elegance of Bach, the intimacy of Chopin’s miniatures and the spiky modernism of Pierre Boulez, always bringing supreme pianism and fresh insights to his performances.

For his second International Piano Series concert at a packed Royal Festival Hall, Pollini trod a more traditional path in an all-Beethoven programme. Traditional, but also ambitious: to perform three of the most well-known, revered and technically demanding of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas would be a challenge for any artist. For a man of seventy-two (and he looks older and frailer) this was a monumental programme, which scaled the highest Himalayan peaks of pianism…..

Read my full review here http://bachtrack.com/review-maurizio-pollini-beethoven-apr-2014

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(photo credit: David Crookes)

In a welcome return to London after several years’ absence, acclaimed Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky opened the 2014 International Piano Series concerts at Southbank Centre with an impressive and absorbing recital of music by two of the finest composers of preludes for the piano, Debussy and Rachmaninov, interspersed with Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Sonata. Opening his concert with two pieces by Debussy not included in the printed programme, rather in the manner of a nineteenth-century virtuoso, he closed with an imposing and well-judged account of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Sonata, demonstrating an appreciation of both the scope of the music and the vastness of the country of its origin. This was an evening of pure pianism, delivered without flashy gimmicks or unnecessary gestures, just honest, committed playing of the highest order.

Read my full review here

The International Piano Series continues at the Southbank Centre