SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION OF AUSTRALIA 2016 / Gala Concert

A view of Sydney Harbour Bridge from Circular Quay.

GALA CONCERT

Sydney International Piano 

Competition of Australia 2016

Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium

Wednesday (6 July 2016), 7.30 pm

Unlike previous Gala Concerts of the quadrennial Sydney International Piano Competition which features previous 1^st prizewinners, this year's edition took a significant departure by showcasing performances by members of its jury and the Artistic Director Piers Lane himself. It was a show of solidarity by the jurors (who were by a large majority concert pianists rather than academics or pure pedagogues) with the competition's 32 participants, as if to say “We are your colleagues too, and we too can play under the public's scrutiny”.

In the same spirit of the competition where all four brands of grand pianos were to be performed equally, there were two performances each on the Steinway, Yamaha, Shigeru Kawai and Fazioli pianos in that order.

Piers Lane gets to the point
so that people could enjoy the music without delay.

After a short and typically witty speech by Lane, the 2-hour long concert got underway on the Steinway. Ewa Kupiec (Poland) opened with Schubert's Impromptu in C minor (Op.90 No.1) with a measured tempo but was voiced with total clarity. Its tragic overtones were well brought out, which soon dissipated as the piece gathered pace. This was followed by Brahms' Rhapsody in B minor (Op.79 no.1) from Maria Yevtich (Serbia), which too was deliberately paced but convincing in its rhetoric. Hers was a characteristically Slavic view, with darkness and more than a hint of gloom than just surface gloss.

First on the Yamaha was Medtner specialist Hamish Milne (UK), but he chose to play the first and last movements from Liszt's Swiss Book of Years of Pilgrimage. The contrasts were wonderfully brought out; thick chords, octaves and echoes in The Chapel of William Tell, and much lightness of touch and lyricism in The Bells of Geneva. Chen Sa (China), who is the youngest of the jurors (herself not too long out of the competition circuit with the Crystal Award at the 2005 Van Cliburn), performed Debussy's Bruyeres and Feux d'Artifice (from Preludes Book 2), the former with touching simplicity and the latter with blazing incandescence.

Sydney's "Castle of music" is the new venue
of the piano competition.

On the Shigeru Kawai, Piers Lane (Australia-UK) was joined by guest violinist Tasmin Little (UK) – who will perform a selection of violin sonatas with 6 semifinalists – brought the house down with Szymanowski's Notturno et Tarantelle. The dark hues of the prelude sublimated a sinister burning intent, which soon came to full fruition with the wildest dance thought possible. For a while, one thought this was a competition for violin, rather than piano. Noriko Ogawa (Japan) offered two pieces by her compatriot Toru Takemitsu, Les Yeux Clos II and Rain Tree Sketch II, both filled with illuminating light and colour. One cannot imagine these better done.

The last piano to be played on was the Fazioli. Orli Shaham (USA) gave a commanding performance of Ginastera's Three Argentinian Dances, rhythmic vitality followed by the second dance's yearning nostalgic, before unleashing the coruscating fury of the Gaucho Matrero. Closing the gala evening was Nikolai Demidenko (Russia) with a rare performance of Medtner's Dithyramb (Op.10 No.2), a grand rather than orgiastic dance of Dionysias. How he filled the hall with its evocation of joy, pure and true, was a summation of the piano itself.

This piano competition to come is a celebration of this grand obsession. 

Three of the jurors as performers:
Hamish Milne, Noriko Ogawa & Piers Lane.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2014)

LEON FLEISHER

Complete Album Collection

Sony Classical (23 CDs) / *****

This handsome box-set was issued in honour of Leon Fleisher’s 85^th birthday this year. He belonged to the “lost generation” of American pianists born during the 1920s and 30s whose careers were curtailed by death, illness or early retirement. Fleisher’s affliction was focal dystonia which for several decades robbed him the use of his right hand. Before that, he had produced some of the best recordings of Beethoven and Brahms piano concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by George Szell, solidly musical and no-nonsense accounts which still stand the test of time.

These have been lovingly reproduced with the original LP designs and sleeve-notes. Also issued are several rarities appearing on disc for the first time, including Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, Franck’s Symphonic Variations and Hindemith’s Four Temperaments, concerte works based on the theme and variations form. Collectors will also treasure his fine recording of Brahms’s Piano Quintet with the Juilliard Quartet and piano music by 20^th century American composers Copland, Kirshner and Sessions. 

There are three CDs which document Fleisher’s years as a left handed pianist, featuring a solo recital, left hand piano concertos (by Ravel, Britten and Prokofiev) and chamber music by Korngold and Franz Schmidt. The final CD from 2009 sees a glorious return to playing with both hands in Mozart piano concertos (No.12 and 23, both in A major) and the Double Piano Concerto (K.242) alongside his former student and present wife Katherine Jacobson. Here is a great career in music translated into a feast for the ears.

BRITISH VIOLIN SONATAS

TASMIN LITTLE, Violin

PIERS LANE, Piano

Chandos 10770 / ****1/2

This is Volume One of a highly promising survey of British violin sonatas from the excellent British duo of Tasmin Little and Piers Lane. The music of the two major sonatas by William Walton (composed 1947-49) and Howard Ferguson (1946) is gratifyingly tonal, tinged with a bittersweet lyricism from that bygone age. The 1950s and 60s would later usher in an age of atonalism that altered the face of music for several decades. The Walton, which shares a similar aesthetic as his celebrated Violin Concerto, is unusual in having just two movements, the second is an absorbing set of variations on a simple theme. The Ferguson is more traditional, in three movements, but no less enjoyable.

 

The true rarity is Benjamin Britten very early and eclectic Suite Op.6 (1934-35) which comprises four character studies as movements. A feel of the burlesque and grotesquerie occupy the March, Moto Perpetuo (Perpetuel Motion) and final Waltz. Those who enjoy his very accessible Piano Concerto (also from the 1930s) will appreciate his ironic sense of humour here. An added bonus are two short pieces by Walton from 1948-50, a Canzonetta and Scherzetto, dedicated to the Brangelina of that era, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Little, known for championing rarely-performed known British works, produces a sweet and beguiling tone, gloriously backed by the ever-sensitive Lane.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2013)

PIERS LANE GOES TO TOWN

PIERS LANE, Piano

Hyperion 67967 / *****

This album of delightful short pieces and encores by the London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane has a strong Anglo-Australian and English-speaking flavour about it. The transcriptions by Dohnanyi and Rachmaninov, a Poulenc Nocturne and Karg-Elert Arabesque are the only exceptions. Tasmanian Katharine Parker’s Down Longford Way and Melbournian Percy Grainger’s Irish Tune From County Derry (or Londonderry Air), both of folksong charm, are the bookends to this journey of discovery. Who but the always-inquisitive Lane would have unearthed gems like fellow Queenslander Regis Danillon’s glorious transcription of A Nightingale Sang At Berkeley Square, Robert Keane’s The Tiger Tango or American Mark Saya’s Barcarolles (quite artfully combining both Chopin and Offenbach)?

Closer to home are his father Alan Lane’s coruscating Toccata and Anthony Doheny’s Toccata For Piers Lane, the latter written when the composer was a Franciscan friar. Familiar to some are Billy Mayerl’s Marigold, Zez Confrey’s Dizzy Fingers and Alec Templeton’s Bach Goes To Town, jazz-inflected baubles all. YouTube addicts might also recognise Dudley Moore’s hilarious Beethoven Parody based on the Colonel Bogey March. The longest track is veteran broadcaster (not the Hannibal Lecter actor) Antony Hopkins’s Variations On A Well-Known Theme, which is Happy Birthday To You written in the styles of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and Prokofiev. Lane’s delectable touch and keen sense of wit make this selection a totally winning one.

MSTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH

plays Russian Concertos

Brilliant Classics 9240 (3 CDs) / ****

Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) was without doubt the greatest cellist of the 20^th century. Despite being cloistered as a subject in the repressive Soviet Union, he inspired and premiered many of the great cello works of the era, much of which is still performed today. His 1950s recordings of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante (1954) and Nikolai Myaskovsky’s Cello Concerto (1944) on EMI Classics remain definitive, but here are 1972 live performances with the Moscow Philharmonic conducted by Kirill Kondrashin from the Gostelradio archives that capture a spontaneity and immediacy that is lacking in the studio.

The same applies to Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto (1959), with the USSR State Symphony led by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, recorded in 1961. Listen past the audience and extraneous noise, and one understands the fierce intensity and irony that colours this music. All three works eschew atonalism but blend dissonance with the bittersweet warmth of human tragedy, qualities which Rostropovich clearly identified with. Also in this box set are Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Glazunov’s Minstrel’s Song, Khachaturian’s Concerto-Rhapsody and 20^th century concertos by Boris Tishchenko and Vladimir Vlasov. Do not expect good sound but performances that truly sizzle.