YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG 2018 / Part 2

Van Cliburn with Nikita Krushchev.
"Is he the best? Then give him the 1st prize!"

Sunday 19 August 2018

MATINEE: STUART ISACOFF Lecture-Talk (11 am)

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of Van Cliburn’s triumph at the 1^st Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 1958. In his book When The World Stopped To Listen, the American write Stuart Isacoff detailed the circumstances that led to Cliburn’s unexpected victory and the ramifications it had to the Cold War. 

His 90-minute lecture-talk was illustrated by slides (and an exhibition of historical photographs) and video clips at the competition and in the company of Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev. It also relived the tensions between the superpowers and how Cliburn’s love for Russian music and the Russian people (and their whole-hearted reception and reciprocation), led to a temporary thaw in relations, and a new appreciation for classical music’s role in world peace. 

Isacoff’s anecdotes were filled with humour, and the breezy account was much enjoyed by a very receptive audience who were full of questions. Will there be a future Van Cliburn  to ease the Trump-Putin-Kim jam the world is in now? Probably not.

MUZA RUBACKYTE Piano Recital (7.30 pm)

The ethos of the Husum Rarities Festival is the quest of different harmonies. So it was totally appropriate to hear the 12 Preludes Op.36 (1914-15) of Louis Vierne, the French composer far better known for his organ music. He was a contemporary of Rachmaninov, so the rich textures and harmonies of the late Romantic period were not unexpected. The wonder was why we have not heard these works as often as those overplayed preludes by Chopin or Rachmaninov. 

Rubackyte does a wonderful job, producing a robust and beefy sonority, especially in the numbers which are thick with chords and more complex harmonies. She also passionately presses the case for her compatriot Mikulajus Ciurlionis, a selection of Preludes and Nocturnes are beautifully rendered.

The highlight would have been the shockingly short-lived Reubke’s single-movement Sonata in B flat minor, dedicated to his teacher Franz Liszt. The poor man died at the age of 24 (probably from tuberculosis, the AIDS of the 19^th century), and should have accomplished very much had he lived another 24 years more. 

Anyone who would respond to Liszt’s B minor Sonata would very much warm up to the thematic transformation and metamorphoses to be found in the Reubke. The main theme returns strategically and becomes like an old friend. Rubackyte was not totally secure with the work, had several short memory lapses, and over-compensated by banging. Not the most persuasive case to be made here, and the same overwrought manner also affected her two Liszt encores, Les Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este and the Third Liebestraume.  

Rush hour at the Holm in Flensburg.

In a Flensburg record shop.

Monday 20 August 2018

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI Piano Recital

The Italian Antonio Pompa-Baldi gave one of the best recitals in the 2017 Festival, and was a natural to be re-invited. His programme this year mirrored the successes of last year, which included an early Romantic sonata and a selection of popular songs in excellent arrangements. 

Last year’s Czerny was replaced by Hummel, Mozart’s most successful pupil, and his E flat major Sonata was a pleasure to listen to – the lightness of Mozart unencumbered by Beethovenian angst, and a sweet Rondo to close. Completely different was Sergei Liapounov’s 12^th Transcendental Etude, in Memory of Franz Liszt, which sounds like an overblown version of Liszt’s own Heroic Elegy that is his Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody. It is heavy and portentous, full of sighs and grumbles with without a fast friss to provide that extra frisson to drive these showy rhapsodies.

The balance of his programme was much lighter, such as Chabrier’s Bouree Fantasque, which is jocular and frolicsome. With Pompa-Baldi’s variegated touches, one can literally hear the jokes. As with last year’s festival, Roberto Piana’s transcriptions return with a garland of Neapolitan songs, such as Santa Lucia, La Danza, Funiculi Funicula and Core N’grato among others, performed with much gusto. Would it be unkind to refer to these as high class lounge music? In the same vein, Poulenc’s Napoli, three movements which include a Barcarolle, Nocturne and Italian Caprice close the recital on a spirited high.

As before, Pompa-Baldi was generous with encores – five in total. He seems to think that the number five is obligatory. These include his own transcription of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise (which like the Sergio Fiorentino version, is straight-forward but beautiful), two Piazzolla tangos (Libertango and Oblivion), Grieg’s Notturno in C major and a true rarity, Serenade by Frenchman Gabriel Grovlez. AP-B’s pianism is a gift that continues giving.  

ANOTHER HUSUM DIARY 2017: DAY TWO

DAY 2: Sunday (20 August 2017)

The morning began with Satu Paavola's lecture-recital of the piano music of Sigismond Thalberg, illustrating his L’Art du chant appliqué au piano (The Art of Song Applied on the Piano), and its 12 cardinal rules on how to translate bel canto singing into the otherwise percussive world of the piano. It is still drizzling, and Husum appears very much like its most famous son Theodor Storm’s droll description of “grey town by the sea”. My only spot of sightseeing is Husum's Weihnachtshaus (Christmas Museum) which is distinguished by its devilish-looking dolls and spooky suspended wooden angels.

Benevolent Christmas angel
or evil minion of Chucky?

Recital 3 (7.30 pm)

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI

A most varied and delicious recital was delivered by the Italian who is based in Cleveland. He has truly captured the Husum spirit even in his debut. Carl Czerny's tricky La Ricordanza Variations, based on a congenial theme by Carl Rode makes an excellent start, bringing fond memories of the Horowitz and Melvyn Tan recordings. 

There was a selection of French bonbons from Pompa-Baldi's recording The Rascal and The Sparrow, juxtaposing Poulenc and Edith Piaf songs transcribed by Roberto Piana. I loved that Steinway & Sons disc, and its even better hearing it live. There can be no better flavour of Gay Paree relived when La Vie En Rose and Les Chemins d'Amour are heard side-by-side. Then we are brought back to earth with Medtner's Sonata Tragica, with its punched out opening chords and overwrought emotions pushed to the brink.

The composer Piana returns with an excellent pastiche of Liszt in his Apres une Lecture de Liszt, the title being an obvious play on the Dante Sonata. Here, every device and gesture of the great Hungarian are revived in miniature sonata form, and there is a perverse kind of checking off the quotes from the B minor Sonata, various Hungarian Rhapsodies, Mephisto Waltz No.1, Feux follets, Tarantella... Even Giuseppe Martucci's Fantasy that followed is Lisztian. 

A selection of three Anton Rubinstein etudes closes the recital with the infamous Staccato Etude doing the honours. APB's technique is up there with the likes of Jorge Bolet and Earl Wild, and his encores just as fine. Two Piana novelettes (Serenatella and Torna a Sorriento a la Scarlatti) are delightfully wicked, contrasted with Paderewski's serene Nocturne and Grieg's Rigaudon (from Holberg Suite) played with the lightness of a harpsichord. Just awesome. 

Husum's harbour at high tide,
and the drawbridge lifts for a returning boat.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2015)

VADYM KHOLODENKO

PLAYS RACHMANINOFF & MEDTNER

Delos 3567 / *****

The young Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko was awarded the coveted 1^st Prize at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. This all-Russian recital disc reveals him at his persuasive best, not so much as a barnstorming virtuoso but a thoughtful and sensitive interpreter. Nikolai Medtner's Winter Wind Sonata in E minor (Op.25 No.2) is a dense and contrapuntally complex single movement lasting some 30 minutes, but listen to how he elucidates its simple main theme, adds building blocks and develops a monumental edifice upon its foundations. While not the easiest work to sit through, he makes a strong case as he leads the listener through its seemingly knotty vistas to ultimately a palpable sense of musical enlightenment.

The balance of the recital comes like a sweet dessert with nine of Rachmaninov's stylish transcriptions of popular melodies. There is utter clarity in the articulation of J.S.Bach's Partita No.3 in three movements and Schubert's lilting Wohin? from Die Schöne Müllerin. Kholodenko skilfully negotiates the hairpin turns of Mendelssohn's Scherzo (from A Midsummer Night's Dream), one of the most hair-raising transcriptions ever devised. The Slavic brooding of Tchaikovsky's Lullaby (Op.16 No.1) is contrasted with the gaiety of Rachmaninov's Polka de V.R. (based on a Lehar tune his father once doodled on) and Kreisler's Liebesleid and Liebesfreud. This is playing of an exulted kind, where true musicality triumphs over mere technical know how. 

BOOK IT:

VADYM KHOLODENKO 
DESTINATION SINGAPORE

Piano Recital

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday, 7 June 2015 at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

THE RASCAL AND THE SPARROW

POULENC MEETS PIAF

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI, Piano

Steinway & Sons 30015 / *****

In 1959, the French composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) composed the last of his 15 Improvisations for piano. He titled it Hommage a Edith Piaf, a languorous waltz-song that indelibly captured the insouciant Parisian spirit of the famous diminutive chanteuse who was known as “The Sparrow”. It is not known whether Poulenc ever knew Edith Piaf (1915-1963) personally or even met her, but his admiration was obvious.

This collection of “songs without words” by Italian pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi brings together his transcriptions of 18 Poulenc's chansons with 10 “elaborations” by Sardinian pianist-composer Roberto Piana of songs immortalised by Piaf. Undoubtedly the best known is La vie en rose, with the famous left hand melody dressed up with playfully contrapuntal and ornate filigree from the right hand. Un grand amour is no less fine, and even cheekily quotes the Rose at its end.

Piana's art borders on the improvisatory, bringing a wealth of feeling and charm to numbers like Hymne l'Amour, Non, je ne regrette rien and Mon Dieu!, which sound truly delicious. Pompa-Baldi's treatment of songs like Le Chemins de l'Amour, Montparnasse, C and Le dernier Mazour are more straight-forward, combining sumptuous melodic lines with Poulenc's own piano accompaniment. Here is just over an hour of nostalgia and gaiety, beautifully realised.